


Expensive Mistakes

by chchchchcherrybomb



Series: The Desperate Type [2]
Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Connor's the only one who thinks he's got enemies, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Withdrawal, Drugs, Ear Piercings, Enemies to Friends, F/M, Gay lions again, Gen, Heroin, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Larry Murphy complains about money, M/M, Original Character(s), Oxy, Prequel, Rehabilitation, Self-Harm, So many OCs, Sorry about, Suicidal Thoughts, The Desperate Type, Underage Drug Use, Underage Smoking, rehab fic, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-06 22:00:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13420497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chchchchcherrybomb/pseuds/chchchchcherrybomb
Summary: For some inpatient rehabs the total average of costs could range anywhere from $12,000 to $60,000. Stupid waste of money, if you asked Connor. Not that anyone did. He wasn't an addict, more of an enthusiast... but tell that to his mother.Connor Murphy goes to rehab. He doesn't want to be there. Connor Murphy accidentally makes a friend. He doesn't know what to think about that.





	1. This Is My Pity Party

**Author's Note:**

  * For [murphystarr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/murphystarr/gifts).



> Hey so since I'm forever a part of the Dave Schwartz fan club, I wrote a whole fic about him and Connor. And it got really long, so it'll be coming to you in two chapters. Next one will be posted within the week, I hope. 
> 
> Amanda (murphystarr) owns Dave's backstory, his parents Dr. Dani Brikowski and Dr. Daryl Schwartz, his girlfriend Aletheia Sinclair-Hernandez, and his siblings Daxton, Dalton, and Dana Schwartz, as well as Allie, his boss. :)

“And this is your room. This is Dave, he’ll be your roommate.”

Connor stared at the woman with the cheery smile who had been leading him around all day. Connor was genuinely fantasizing about smashing the lamp in the room in the floor and jabbing a jagged piece into her jugular just for the chance that he might get some fucking quiet for a few minutes.

He’d spent the last few days alternating between shaking like a Chiuaua with a migraine and getting sick at every possible opportunity, but apparently now that he was finished barfing every few hours,  the people in charge thought it was time to move him out into the general population. He was _not_ happy about this. He frankly didn’t think he fucking belonged here until he started dry heaving because he’d thrown up everything in his stomach already. Two days in. They’d trapped him in a room with some kid named Jason who seemed to have it a lot worse than Connor with the whole detox situation; he started crying for his mom at one point. Connor might be dealing with the fact that he ate more pills than meals lately but at least he wasn’t _that_ pathetic.

“I’ll let you get settled,” The cheerful idiot said, turning and leaving Connor standing there and with his moronic roller suitcase and a pounding headache. “Lights out at ten.”

Connor shoved his bag under the bed and immediately collapsed onto the stiff twin mattress. He was exhausted. He wanted to sleep more than he even wanted to take something.

“So… they’re letting twelve year olds in here now?”

Connor turned his head to look at this lumberjack in his room. He was way too big for the room, the bed, the universe. The guy had a bunch of tattoos; Connor could see an owl tattoo and weirdly felt like it was watching him.

He didn’t answer this guy. He closed his eyes instead.

“What’s your name?”

“Fuck off.”

“That’s a pretty name.”

Connor genuinely wanted to throw up at the idea that this guy was still fucking talking. He just wanted to not think for twenty minutes and this idiot was running his mouth. Connor couldn’t even catch a break at fucking rehab. “Connor. It’s Connor. Please stop talking.”

“He speaks!”

“ _Please_.”

“What are you in for anyway?”

Connor turned to glare at this chatterbox. “Aren’t you like… _not_ supposed to ask that?”

“It’s not _prison,_ ” Dave said, laughing a little. “Booze and pills mostly for me. Started with booze, of course. My hands were mad shaky at first, which was a huge pain since I literally need them for work. I’m a -”

“God, do you not know how to take a hint?” Connor said, pulling the pillow on the bed over his head which was still pounding. “Shut up and leave me alone.”

“How sick have you been, then? Managed to keep any food down? I’ve got vending machine privileges, I could sneak you something if you need.”

“For fuck’s sake, _please_ leave me alone.” He’d spent days throwing up; food was not an option.

Dave laughed. “Alright, princess, but only because I can tell you need your beauty sleep.”

* * *

 

Dave the chatty lumberjack talked in his sleep. Because of course he never shut up.

Connor knew this because it was four in the morning and he couldn’t manage to sleep. He felt like _shit_. His head was killing him, his stomach was twisted in knots, and now there was the sort of daunting reality that his parents had dropped him off here. Which meant his parents knew, which meant Zoe knew, which meant…

The thought made his stomach hurt.

He ought to have just swallowed the whole bottle last time.

He swung his legs over the bed, deciding he was so fucking out of here. This was just a massive waste of money. He didn’t want to be alive let alone _sober_. His parents were morons; Zoe was the only one with the right idea. He’d heard her shouting at their mom the morning they set off on this little rehab adventure, saying that they should just let him kill himself if that’s what he wanted.

The first time they’d agreed on anything in years.

Connor crawled out of bed, thinking he’d just use the bathroom first and then get the hell out of here. He wasn’t eighteen yet, but maybe he could just lay low for the rest of the summer and avoid being sent back. Maybe they’d send him off to his grandma’s again, like last summer. That wasn’t so bad. Mostly just housework and yard work. He could practically hear her yelling at him for mowing the lawn in eighty degree weather still wearing a hoodie, but it wasn’t like he was going to take it off. His grandma didn’t look at him like the rest of the family, at least. Like she was scared of him.

At least she didn’t until she realized her bottle of prescription painkillers had disappeared. But he was back at home by then.

Connor walked out into the hallway, internally thinking that if his parents were going to spend the ridiculous amount of money they were, they might as well have sprung for a place with private bathrooms. He pulled his sleeves over his hands and set off, not totally sure where the bathroom was in the semi dark hall. He should have put his glasses on, because he was pretty sure he’d taken out his contacts a couple of days ago… but he frankly wasn’t sure that he’d even packed his glasses. His mom might have been screaming her head off at him, but she hadn’t been watching him when he escaped to the bathroom to snort a crushed up pill and hide the rest of his stash.

Connor eventually found the bathroom, and locked himself in a stall to pee because public restrooms were never a wise place to be when you looked like human scarecrow, he’d learned. When stepped out of the stall to wash his hands, Connor was annoyed to find that guy Jason was also in there, splashing water on his face and (thankfully) no longer crying for his mommy.

“Oh. You again.”

Connor stared. He really didn’t… people.

“Withdrawal is the fucking worst. And I can’t even try to jerk off to feel better. No god damn privacy.”

Connor had no fucking clue what to do with that.

“Unless you want to help me out? Since we’re alone in here.”

Connor probably looked like an idiot with the way he just. Didn’t. React. He sort of wished he could disappear on the spot.

Admittedly, it was probably fitting for his shitty life that he’d have his first ever kiss with a stranger in the men’s room in rehab. He didn’t even… know for sure if he was…

Whatever.

They were interrupted in their makeout session after about ten minutes or ten years, Connor wasn’t sure. Jason had a point - at least it distracted him.

But of course Chatty Dave was the one who walked in as Jason wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, winked at Connor, and left without a word.

Dave sighed. “That kid was here when I got here. Graduated. And now he’s back again? Sucks.” He shook his head. “You two know each other?”

Connor shrugged. “Not really.”

“Huh.” Dave said, heading off toward a urinal. “Be careful around him.”

“Yeah whatever, thanks.” Connor rushed out of the bathroom before he had to watch this chatterbox take a piss. He’d probably describe it to Connor and ask to compare, like, color and smell or what the fuck ever.

No thank you.

Connor walked back to the room they’d stuck him in and threw himself in the bed, pretending immediately to be asleep so Dave wouldn’t talk to him.

* * *

 

He had been there two weeks when he was required, for whatever reason, to have therapy with his family.

Connor tried to find a thousand ways out of it. He plead that his parents were busy. He plead that he hated them. He tried to fake food poisoning the morning of the meeting.

His individual therapist, a very tired looking woman called Rebecca, kept pursing her lips. Connor had a feeling if he kept this up, she’d quit.

Good.

So Connor and Rebecca waited for his parents to show up in the middle of a Friday afternoon. Zoe was supposed to come, but Connor knew she wasn’t showing. He told Rebecca this, at least three times, and she kept insisting that he shouldn’t be dismissive.

His mom showed up on time. Frowning, saying that Zoe was under the weather.

His dad didn’t turn up until ten minutes after they were supposed to get started, looking frustrated and checking his phone as he walked into the building. He looked annoyed with Rebecca’s bland smile as she ushered them all into a room with a couch and two chairs. Connor threw himself into a chair and didn’t look at anyone.

“Mr. Murphy, if you wouldn’t mind turning off your phone? We’d like it if everyone could be present for this session.”

Connor thought Larry was going to hit her. He almost smiled at the idea.

“What are you smirking about?” Larry snapped, perfect, this was exactly how Connor had imagined this meeting going.

It was a disaster. Just a total disaster. Larry kept asking what the point of the session was, grumbling about work, and how much this was costing him. “Twenty thousand dollars, and so far all I’ve heard is that he went to a yoga class _once._ ”

Connor crossed his arms. He had gone to yoga. Once. He was avoiding his fucking roommate, and he didn’t even really participate. “If you don’t want to pay for this then take me home,” He said, glaring at Larry.

His mom’s face went pale, and she tried to smooth that over, embarrassed that Rebecca the rehab therapist was seeing them all hate each other. Like she hadn’t seen worse. “Honey we want you to get better.”

“There’s nothing wrong with me!” Connor protested, the back of his neck heating up. “I’ve shitty parents, so what?”

“Connor, this isn’t productive,” Rebecca said, frowning. “I understand you’re frustrated because you were sent here without consenting -”

“That’s not true,” His mom said, suddenly. Connor felt a dip in his stomach; she looked like she might cry. “We… we didn’t send him here without…. Connor, honey, you asked us for help.”

“No I didn’t,” Connor said, rolling his eyes.

“You _did_ ,” His mom insisted. “The first night you came back home after you disappeared, you said that you needed help…”

“Well obviously he doesn’t want it now,” Larry said, sounding exasperated.

“I never wanted it!”

“Connor, sweetheart,” His mom tried, but Connor was so done. He clenched his hands into fists, thumbs outside, and stared at the ceiling, tuning them all out, not really there, not feeling this or much of anything at all. It wasn’t real. The whole thing.

 

* * *

The Jason thing kept happening. For a place that boasted it would keep people clean and healthy, they sure didn’t seem to notice that Connor was making out with a fellow tweaker all over the place. Jason had been there before; Jason knew people who could get him pills and booze. His rehab was court ordered.

For the most part, Connor talked very little. He knew he wasn’t good at whatever it was they were doing, but he’d never had anyone take an interest in him before and it was. Weird. Nice. A distraction from the fact that he wanted to die and was trapped.

One night, not long after he’d been given his room assignment, Connor walked back into his room only to be blinded by the light of the lamp that Dave-the-lumberjack switched on. “Where have you been?”

“Fuck you.”

“That Jason kid has a deathwish. He was in my group the first week I was here. He managed to blow ninety days sober in a week and land back here. They had to pump his stomach last time.”

“So?”

“So… quit hanging around him. Trust me. I’ve had friends like that before, and it’s so not worth it.”

Connor toed off his shoes and climbed into bed, still dressed. “Fuck off.”

 

* * *

Everywhere Connor went, Dave was there.

Group therapy? Dave was there, talking away about his tendency to drink instead of feel things.

Free time? Dave, happily chatting with the other tweakers on the same couch, friendly and cheerful and annoying as fuck.

His room, the bathroom, outside smoking.

Connor couldn’t go anywhere without turning around to find Dave. And it was really really getting on his nerves. His nerves were shot too, so Connor didn’t know if he ought to be impressed at how easily Dave’s cheerfulness had gotten under his skin or pissed off that he was so irritable.

The only thing keeping him from trying to drown himself in the shower was the slight possibility of attention from Jason. Which he knew was just. Pathetic. The guy wasn’t even, like, _that_ cute. He looked like a junkie. He looked like hell. Sometimes when they kissed, Connor could swear he tasted sulfur.

But it was the first time that anyone had been interested in kissing him and probably the last time anyone ever would so. He just kind of. Went with it.

He didn’t know how old Jason was. Or if he had any diseases, which was actually a concern in the back of Connor’s mind because apparently he hadn’t slept through all of ninth grade health class and now he was a little troubled by the idea that Jason might have HIV. Not that Connor especially cared what happened to him, but he thought, well, his parents would definitely be pissed if that was the way he ended up. Not that they were having sex, but Jason certainly seemed interested in pushing things in that direction...

Connor was mulling all of this over, staring down at the bland turkey sandwich he had been served for lunch and half missing the cafeteria at school because then at least he could ditch the sandwich and get high in the bathroom.

He idly scratched his arm.

That was the other thing.

This place didn’t seem to have a single sharp edge in it. Baby proofed. Junkie-proofed. It was driving him up the wall, frying his already shot nerves, making him seriously consider the pros and cons of smashing a mirror just for the three seconds of…

“Murphy.”

Dave was fucking smiling at him again. “What.”

“Are you going to eat or just play with your food?” He asked, smiling easily. He took a bite of his own sandwich. “Seriously, you look like a scarecrow. You should eat that.”

“Fuck off.”

“Sometimes, when I get tired of all of this organic, flaxseed bullshit health food, I straight up pretend it’s Chipotle. Helps.”

Connor shook his head in disgust. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

Dave shrugged which just pissed Connor right off. There wasn’t even a reason that this clown was bothering him. Brilliant. He shoved his plate away and put his head down on the table, trying to ignore the dull roar starting to build behind his eyes like television static or snow or little flakes of styrofoam. He felt kind of sick. He felt kind of like breaking his hand on Dave’s face.

Connor dejectedly followed Dave to group therapy, perhaps the most bullshit of all of the crap he had to put up with in this fucking place. Maybe not the _most_ bullshit. His individual therapist Rebecca was clueless as hell and kept trying to get him to talk about his _childhood_ like it was going to uncover some deeply held secret that made him want to take drugs.

There was no secret. He’d been a miserable motherfucker for as long as he could remember. Tada. Mystery solved. Some people were just built wrong.

His therapy group was talking about some big event; Tina was graduating. Connor didn’t know who Tina was. They’d been in this group together for all of thirty seconds. She apparently managed sixty days without sucking dick for meth. Go Tina.

But people were having a lot of feelings about Tina’s departure, feelings that Connor couldn’t really even feign an interest in, so instead he looked out the window and thought about getting hit by a car.

Apparently that was a bad idea, because the next thing he knew, Claire, the group facilitator, had called on him.

Or so he assumed from the way everyone was staring at him.

“What?” He said stupidly.

Claire did her best smile, a tight, terse, unhappy smile. “I asked how you were feeling about this transition?”

He shrugged. He didn’t _want_ to be rude, but figured it was the best way to avoid participating in this bullshit. “I don’t know Tina. I don’t think we ever, like, talked. So I don’t really care.”

Tina didn’t seem bothered, but Dave seemed to find this to be funny. He was smirking.

“What?” Connor said, looking at him.

Dave shook his head, laughing quietly to himself.

“What?” Connor repeated, feeling his hands tighten into fists.

“Well, how the fuck are you going to know anyone if you don’t talk to them?” Dave said. “You don’t talk in here, at lunch, during free time. I’ve been trying to be nice to you for like a week now, and you keep telling me to fuck off.”

“Maybe I don’t want you to be nice to me.”

“ _What_? Why not?”

“Because I’m not a fucking joke for you laugh at.”

“Okay, maybe we ought to move on-” Claire started.

“I don’t think you’re a joke. I think you’re a lost little kid who could use a friend.”

“Fuck you!”

“I just mean, dude, I don’t know you, but you seem pretty l-”

“But nothing! Joke’s over, you can go laugh it up with the other guys now.”

“What?”

“I know you’re just fucking with me so you can see how hard you can push before I freak out, okay, and fine! You fucking win. I’m freaking out. Happy?”

“Guys, this doesn’t seem productive-”

“No, I’m not! I’m not happy, why would you think that at all? Are you like paranoid or something?”

Connor didn’t hear the next words out of his mouth. All noise faded to a dull whine. One second he was seething at Dave, the next second the plexiglass behind Dave’s head was spiderweb cracked and a chair was on its side, dented, with Dave on the floor looking horrified.

* * *

 

“We don’t tolerate that kind of behavior here.”

Connor blinked.

“Your being here is a privilege. Your parents are spending a lot of money for you to get well.”

“I didn’t ask them to do that.”

The woman behind the desk sighed, rubbing her eyes. Connor smirked, imagining that when she took this job she had probably had all of these big dreams of helping people or some other crap. Here he was to ruin the day. “Connor. Look. You’re seventeen. You have a chance to turn things around here, while you’re still young, and you’re wasting it.”

Connor crossed his arms over his chest.

“Dave Schwartz has said he doesn’t think that changing rooms is necessary, so we’ll keep you there on a probationary basis-”

“What? Why? I can’t fucking stand him. I mean, I threw a chair at him! Why do I have to keep being his roommate?”

The woman sighed. “Did he do anything to provoke you?”

“I-”

“Verbal, physical violence?”

“No, but-”

“Is his presence a threat to your sobriety?”

“What? I don’t…” Connor sighed. “No. I mean. Not that there’s anyway not to be sober here.”

“Then you’ll stay put until we can find a more suitable room for you,” She said, and something in her tone reminded Connor greatly of his father. It made him grind his teeth in frustration. “You’re on pretty thin ice, okay? Property damage isn’t a laughing matter. You don’t want to become the person who gets thrown out of rehab, Connor, trust me. Don’t let me catch you in here again.”

Connor stared blankly.

“You can go.”

“Great.”

* * *

 

His mom was pissed when she called him.

“You threw a chair at someone Connor!”

He said nothing.

“This has gotten way out of hand, I don’t even know what to do anymore. We’ve tried everything! What aren’t we doing, Connor, what is it that you need?”

“I don’t need to be here,” He said, frustrated.

“Oh yes, you absolutely do.”

“Why do you keep saying? I don’t want to be here, I don’t have -”

“Connor, you told me! When you got home that night, you said that you were always getting high, that you didn’t know how to stop, and that you needed help.”

“No I-” But it was like he had been hit in the stomach with a football, thrown hard, perfect spiral. Like he’d been punched in the gut. “...I did say that.”

“Yes. You did.”

“Why did you listen to me?” He said, “I was high.”

“Connor I just wanted you to get help… I…”

“I should go.”

He hung up on his mom, his face burning, his guts twisting.

He’d been on a bit of a bender. Like, four days or so. He’d ran off when his mom asked just where he thought he was going.

Somehow, he’d ended up hanging out with Isaac, spending fifty dollars that he’d stolen off of Zoe so he could get high. He’d been crashing, arms itching, sweating, feeling like shit. He blamed it on not having money the other day, and using the last twenty in his bank account to get his hands on something. He’d never considered heroin like a good option, but beggars can’t be choosers and he was fucking begging.

And then he kind of lost track of stuff. He switched off his phone because his mom kept calling and snorted a crushed pill until he sort of floated off.

But then he sort of wondered what time it was, because he’d ended up on this dirty old floor with a few other guys, and he wasn’t totally sure where he was. So he switched his phone on, thinking he’d get the time, and was confused to see it had been a few days.

His stash was pretty depleted, but not totally gone. He wanted to sleep in his own bed. He thought he ought to sneak home when his parents were asleep so he could shower.

But then his mom was hauling him home and everything hurt and they all kept yelling at him, and Zoe like basically shoved him down the stairs and he just couldn’t be there anymore.

“Connor are you listening to me?”

“I snorted a pill earlier,” He said, dully.

“What?”

“When I went to the bathroom. I crushed some oxy and did a line after I peed. Because I was starting to feel sick.”

“What are you talking about?” Larry demanded.

“I’m high right now. I’ve been high for like… four or five days.”

“Connor, sweetheart.”

His dad exploded. He was screaming about how that was illegal, Connor, and where was he even getting money for this?

“I stole some out of Zoe’s purse. I think.”

That set Larry off again, going on and on about how this wasn’t acceptable, what if the guys from the firm found out, did he have any idea how much trouble be was in?

“I did heroin last week, after you guys cut off my allowance. It’s cheaper.” Connor said, smirking, almost laughing. His dad’s face was tomato red, then cherry red. He might pass out. Connor snorted.

"Why would you do that?” His mom said, and there were tears in her eyes and he did that he did that he was a monster a freak horrible awful.

“Because I like being high.”

His dad was getting up, stomping around the room.

“I started stealing pills from grandma,” Connor said, still almost laughing, because honestly it was fucking funny. “And I’ve been getting high all fucking year. And you guys just… ignored it.”

“Connor.”

“He’s just saying this to get attention, Cynthia, don’t -”

“Maybe I ought to get some attention,” He said, actually laughing now.

“Do you know how common overdoses are? Do you know what can happen to addicts-?”

Connor had wanted to protest that he was definitely _not_ an addict, more like an enthusiast, but he was high and tired so he kept that to himself. Instead he said, “This guy I know ODed last week. It sucked, because he choked on his own puke, and it really brought down the mood.” He shook his head. “I’m kind of jealous. I keep trying to do that but then I get so high I forget that’s the plan.”

“ _Connor_ ,” His mom sounded hysterical, she was shaking him.

He blinked slowly. “I’m probably gonna die.” He shrugged. “Whatever.”

“He needs help,” Cynthia said, turning to Larry. “He needs help, Larry!”

“He needs some fucking discipline, but I’m the only one in this house who is trying!”

"Larry, listen to what he's saying! He's high! He... he needs to get off the drugs, or..." She shook her head. "I think Chris might know a place..."

“What, like rehab or something? Do you have any idea what that will cost? And what if that doesn’t work either?”

“Well we have to try something!”

Connor starting giggling, thinking, “they tried to make me go to rehab…”

“Connor go to your room,” his mom snapped. Apparently he'd sung it outloud.

“I won’t go go go…”

“Now,” She demanded. “And give me whatever you have on you.”

"I don't have anything."

"Bullshit, Connor, hand it over."

He pulled a small baggie of pills out of his boot. And set it on the table. And went upstairs to bed.

And went to rehab the next day.

* * *

 

The only good thing about this place was the fact that he could still smoke. They didn’t even care that he was underage. Connor guessed they were just pleased it wasn’t, like, heroin.

He’d only ever snorted that, back home. In a pinch. It was cheaper.

 

Connor shook his head, lighting another cigarette. He wanted to go home, and he didn’t even know what for. Nobody there wanted him. Zoe was probably thrilled to have him gone. She had been last summer.

“Hey.”

Connor turned to see Dave, fucking Dave, walking outside. Just when he was starting to feel less murderous too.

Dave sat down on the step next to him. Connor wondered if Dave was planning to kick his ass. It wouldn’t be hard; Dave was built like a tank, Connor like a twig. Maybe he’d get lucky and Dave would accidentally kill him. That was the dream right there.

“Hey man. I’m not sure what happened earlier, but I’m really sorry. Clearly I’ve pushed too hard and need to back off. It’s my bad, okay? I need to chill. You just remind me a little of my brother, but that’s not your baggage, okay? So I come in peace to say I’m sorry.”

Connor frowned. “Your _dead_ brother?”

“Ah, so you _do_ listen in group.”

“Whatever.” Connor took a drag of his cigarette, holding back the apology on his tongue. Maybe if he just let it go, Dave would finally take a hint.

Connor was never good at letting things go. “Sorry. That was a shitty thing to say. And sorry. About the chair, I mean. I’m… kind of an asshole.” There was no other way to put it. He was just… kind of an asshole.

“Yeah, I fucking noticed,” Dave said, but he sort of chuckled so Connor’s shoulders relaxed a little. They just sat there, smoking cigarettes.

“You’re really not fucking with me?” Connor said after a while. “You really just want to _talk_?”

“Yeah dude. This place blows, and I’ve been here a couple of weeks. I figured maybe you’d want someone to hang out with who won’t try to like… sell you meth.”

“Oh.” Connor felt just, incredibly stupid and small then. Of course he got that wrong. Of course. After the whole Jared blow up in middle school, he just learned it was better to assume the worst of people. So far the results had been pretty spot on… at least until this. “I suck at this. I don’t. I don’t really have friends.”

“Yeah my friends are assholes too,” Dave said conversationally.

“No. I mean. I don’t, like. Have friends.” There was a strange sort of lump that formed in his throat. It wasn’t exactly a proud moment, admitting that he had nobody.

“Don’t be such a martyr, dude,” Dave said, laughing.

Connor sort of frowned without meaning to, and Dave sort of. Noticed.

“Seriously?” Dave said, stubbing out his cigarette. “You don’t have friends? Not any?”

Connor shrugged. “I just. Don’t talk to people, usually. I hate them, they hate me. You know. That sort of thing. It’s been like that since middle school.” He didn’t know why he was telling Dave this at all. He wouldn’t even admit this to his _mom,_ who like, had to like him no matter how pathetic he got. “Just. Some asshole in my class made a big deal out of us hanging out while we did this school project in middle school, right? And then called me a dick for being, like, bummed out that I didn’t get invited to his bar mitzvah. Like _I_ did it just to be a jerk, even though he invited basically everyone else in our whole grade.” He shrugged, feeling that weird lump in his throat grow bigger. “I just… stupidly thought we were friends. I dunno. I don’t really talk to people anymore.”

“That’s pretty fucked up,” Dave said. He nudged Connor’s shoulder in a sort of friendly way. “Last year was hard, then?”

“Fuck _off_ ,” Connor said, but he was almost smiling.

“You’re like fourteen, right?”

“Screw you, at least I’m not _forty seven_.”

Dave laughed, and Connor caught himself smiling.

It was nearly dinner time. “Hey, I’ve got an idea,” Dave said. “Meet me back here during free time, yeah?”

“Sure whatever.”

* * *

Connor would have been pretty sure that Dave was screwing with him if the guy hadn’t practically skipped past him after dinner saying he’d meet Connor outside in a minute. This guy was basically chipper. It was awful.

Connor scratched idly at his arm. There was nothing sharp to be found around the facility. He’d been so sick and so pissed off that like… weeks had passed without him taking something sharp to his arms, and… that was…

“Ah, alright. Alone at last.”

Connor eyed Dave suspiciously, but he just plonked his massive lumberjack frame down next to Connor on the steps of the smoking porch and produced a joint from his pocket.

Connor, feeling like, insanely surprised, managed to say, “What.”

“Party favors,” Dave said, smirking. “I know, I know. We’re supposed to… you know. _Not_ do drugs. But I’ve done enough shit in my life to know that the devil’s oregano isn’t going to send either of us into a frenzy for heroin. So. That cool?”

Connor nodded, trying hard not to seem too over eager or enthusiastic. He hadn’t smoked with another person in… years. He rarely ever even indulged drug dealer etiquette and let his weed guy smoke him up. Not that he had even smoked in a while. He’d cut back a lot after he started eating pills for all three meals.

Dave passed him the joint, and to Connor’s chagrin, he coughed on the first puff.

“Please tell me you’re not such a yuppie kid that you missed out on pot as a gateway drug,” Dave said, laughing.

“No. Just been awhile.” He passed it back. They traded back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

“Not to be like, you know, creepy but have you ever considered smiling more?” Dave said, smiling at Connor. “You look like… a totally different person.”

Connor’s head felt pleasantly detached from reality. “Yeah, like a killer clown maybe.” He smiled, regardless. “So like. How old are you, anyway?”

“Ancient,” Dave said, snickering. “You?”

Connor closed his eyes for a long second. “Seventeen.” It sounded a lot younger to his ears for some reason.

“Fuck man.”

“I know.”

“You’re a baby.”

“I know.”

“And you look like one. Didn’t your parents teach you how to brush your hair? You look like fucking Russell Brand.”

Connor rolled his eyes and took the joint back from Dave, taking another hit. He didn’t know who that was. “So. What do you do? Other than drugs.”

Dave cracked a smile. “I’m a tattoo artist.”

Connor felt like a cartoon who was obviously interested in an idea, like his eyes were popping out of his head. “Cool,” He said, failing at nonchalant. “How’d you… get into that?”

Dave smiled wider, talking about how he was always drawing as a kid. “I got into an apprenticeship after I flunked out of college.”

“That’s… cool,” Connor repeated, lamely, pulling the cuffs of his sleeves over his thumbs so that only his fingertips poked out of the sleeves. His mouth and throat felt dry; he always got terrible cotton mouth when he was high. Without meaning to he mentioned that the last time he’d hung around with another person smoking, they had demolished an entire bag of Gardetto's on a playground.

Dave snorted. “Chex Mix is the way to go, man.”

Connor shook his head, “No way. Who wants Wheat Chex?”

“People who care about getting their whole grains!”

Connor chuckled. “Fuck whole grains! If I want to eat a bag of salty pretzels and rye chips, I should get to do it without the obstacle of cereal in there.”

Dave was laughing a little. “You’re not living your life right if you don’t enjoy a savory cereal from time to time.”

Which set Connor off, giggling.

They went back and forth on it for a while, both laughing, arguing over what was a better snack, losing track of the conversation, picking it back up. Laughing.

Connor usually didn’t laugh this much when he was high. He didn’t do anything at all when he was high. He just wanted to kill himself a little bit less.

Dave was watching a rabbit hop across the lawn.

“If you were an animal, what would you be?” Connor asked. He pictured Dave as a bear. A teddy bear. The kind raised by humans who would like tackle hug people.

“An osprey, for sure.”

“What the hell is that?”

“A bird, dumbass! It’s like. Such a fucking cool bird. They like…are hella protective of their nests. Like the mama bear of birds.”

Connor looked at him strangely.

“I can be a fucking mama bear bird,” Dave said, laughing. “Don’t be so binary man.” Connor laughed too. If Dave said so, who was he to argue? “What about you, what kind of animal would you be?”

Connor sighed. He didn’t know. Probably something lazy and fucking useless. Something terrifying. Whatever someone would run screaming from even though he was a joke. “Maybe like a lion?” He imagined the lions at the zoo, the kind that sat around doing nothing until they suddenly started growling at the little kids on the other side of the glass.

“Ah yeah because of the mane.”

Connor smiled, shrugging.

“You could be the Cowardly Lion. I bet you’d look really pretty with a bow in your hair.”

“Fuck off,” Connor whined, laughing.

Dave laughed too, warbling a few lines of “If I Were King of the Forest,” which cracked Connor up.

“Lions don’t even live in forests,” He said, shaking his head.

“They also don’t sing or talk,” Dave said, “but I don’t hear you whining about that lack of realism.”

“I just mean. Oz could have a savannah.”

Dave chuckled. “Did you know that, like, most lions… like the guys? They’re all bi, at least. Like. Male lions fuck male lions all of the time.”

Connor thought he felt his heart stop.

He.

Froze.

“Wh-what?”

He’d never, not really, been face to face with the idea that… like he was screwing around with Jason but it wasn’t like they were, you know, talking about it. He. He didn’t.

Dave was still talking, looking panicked like he didn’t realize he’d put his foot in his mouth and needed to jam it in there further. “Fuck, I mean. It was… I was just being an idiot, like, just… like. Gay lions…” He stopped, cleared his throat, tried again. “Like. It’s totally cool or whatever if you’re gay, you know? Like one of my best friends from college is gay and like… He’s great, but being gay isn’t like…why...” Dave stopped, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I swear I’d be doing a better job of this if I wasn’t baked like a fucking cake right now… But.  Who you love is like, you know, just one piece of you and not inherently good or bad. So. If you’re gay, then… that’s cool. With me. You know.”

Connor stared.

“It’s… you know, it’s okay to be gay and whatever dude. If you are. I mean… Yeah.”

Connor, relieved in a way he had never expected to be, laughed a little breathlessly. “Um.”

Dave smiled sort of sheepishly at him.

Connor chuckled again, just sort of smiling while also feeling like an idiot because like.

Well.

It wasn’t like anyone had ever said something like that to him before.

And without really meaning to, Connor found his mouth moving, spilling all of the idiotic secrets he swore he wouldn’t tell people because he wasn’t the type to spill his guts in rehab. “I think… I’m pretty sure my dad spent, like, my whole life trying to keep me from being…” He stopped for just a second, because there was something liberating but also terrifying about admitting it outloud, “...being gay.”

Dave frowned. “That sucks.”

“I had… like, I dunno, sort of long hair for a bit in middle school. Like.” He kind of snorted, raking a hand through his long hair. “Not this long, but just sort of… too long for his tastes. And he, like, made this whole… pitch that if I, you know, looked more normal, more like the other kids that people might actually talk to me for a change…” Connor pinched the sleeves pulled over his fingers. “And then he made me get a buzz cut.”

“Fuck, really?”

Connor nodded. “I hated it. I looked like a fucking alien.”

“That really blows.”

Connor shrugged. “And like, later that night… my parents fight. A lot. Like, they probably should have gotten divorced a thousand years ago. And Zoe and I… Zoe’s my sister, um… we could hear them arguing, and my dad was all, ‘blahblahblah, Cynthia do you want him to turn out gay? And, like, that’s not how boys are supposed to act and whatever.’ It… sucked.”

“Dude, I’m sorry,” Dave said. He lit a cigarette. Offered Connor one. They smoked. Connor felt idiotic for saying anything at all. “That’s some real toxic masculinity bullshit, you know?”

Connor shrugged. He didn’t really want to admit that, well, some parts of him thought that maybe his dad was right. If he weren’t so weird, so girly, so gay, whatever, maybe he wouldn’t feel so fucking broken all of the time.

“Like, fuck, I want to meet your dad and give him a hug. Just to make him uncomfortable.”

Connor snorted with laughter, surprised.

“Maybe even give him a little cheek kiss. Just because.”

Connor laughed again, looking over at Dave. “But you’re not even gay!”

“What does that matter? I’m still going to give your pops a big old whiskery smooch and a lingering hug. Teach him how to be a real man. There’s nothing fucking scary about being affectionate with people of your gender. Like, come on, you can’t tell me he came out of the womb giving firm handshakes to all of the other penis-havers, right? Jesus Christ.”

Connor cracked up. He laughed so hard his sides started to hurt and he started to cough a little. Dave laughed right along with him.

“Is that why the hair? To piss your dad off?”

Connor shook his head. “I just… like it like this. But pissing him off is a nice bonus.”

Dave smirked. “You know. I do piercings sometimes.”

Connor looked over at him, smiling. “Oh?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“I used to want my ears done. Especially after my sister did hers when she was like eight? But you know….” Connor looked over at Dave.

“I’ve got a pair of studs back in the room. And I found a safety pin on a jacket of mine...”

“Let’s do it.”

* * *

 

“Look even to you?”

Connor looked in the mirror. He really made a point of not doing that, honestly. He didn’t like his face; it was too sharp, too pale, too sad. He tucked his hair behind his overly large ears, trying to determine if the black sharpie dots Dave had drawn on the lobes looked even.

“Yeah, I think.”

“Cool,” Dave said. He was rubbing Purell over a safety pin, then running the pin through the flame of a lighter.

“Is this legal?” Connor said stupidly. He was still pretty high.

“Only if you decide to tell my boss,” Dave said, shaking his head. “She’d literally cut my balls off.” He looked at Connor then said, “Well hop on the counter.”

“Can’t I just stand?”

Dave snorted. “You’ll move less if you sit.”

Connor rolled his eyes but hopped on the counter. He didn’t really know why he was agreeing to this. He didn’t… he didn’t even super want to pierce his ears, honestly. He thought his ears were pretty stupid looking already.

“Okay,” Dave said, pouring Purell over his hands and rubbing them together. He picked up the safety pin, and approaching Connor’s face. He took hold of Connor’s ear and then said. “Looks like we’re set. Gimme a big deep breath in?”

“What? Why?”

“Just do it,” Dave said.

Connor obeyed, sucking in a deep breath.

“And out.”

He exhaled. As the breath left him, he felt the safety pin pinch his earlobe a little.

“Cool, hold still I’ll put the stud in.”

“Wait, that was it?” Connor said, eyes traveling to the side.

“Yup,” Dave said, pulling the safety pin back out and putting in the metal stud. “Want to look first or just do the next one?”

“Do the next one?”

“Alright.” He watched Dave clean the safety pin again, then head over to Connor’s other side. “Deep breath in.”

Connor didn’t argue this time. He breathed in.

“And out.”

It was over pretty fast. His lobes were a little bit red when he turned to look at in the mirror. And then Connor started laughing. “I can’t believe you did that!”

Dave laughed in response.

And Connor laughed at him laughing, barely keeping it together, tittering, “That was… that was fucking illegal!” And that set Dave off and then Connor was clutching the bathroom counter because he couldn’t hold himself up right.

“What is going on in here?”

Connor heard the voice of one of the orderlies who worked the night shift, looking livid at him and Dave in a bathroom with a lighter and a needle.

Which was how Connor wound up in his case worker’s office for the second. He had bitten his nails to bleeding. He didn’t know why he suddenly cared, but the idea of being sent home now seemed.

Stupid.

Like if he went home, things would be very bad.

Like if Dave got thrown out over this, Connor would feel way worse.

The case worker looked exhausted when she finally entered her office. Connor stood up. “The pot was mine, the whole piercing ears thing was my idea, please don’t punish him because I’m an idiot.”

His caseworker blinked. “Please sit down.”

Connor sat.

“I’ve called your parents.”

Connor nodded. So this was it. He was being sent home. Fine. Just. Fine.

“And we agreed that this is indicative of your needing more time here. So. You should plan on completing your ninety days.”

Connor nodded. “And Dave?”

She almost smiled. “No longer seeking a new room assignment?”

Connor shook his head. She dismissed him to bed, and he was escorted back to their room.

Dave was sitting inside, looking anxious. “Did they throw you out?”

“No. You?”

“No,” He smiled at Connor then. “So, we both agree that it was very stupid and we’ll never do it again.”

“Sure.”

Dave grinned. “Go to bed, don’t you need like eleven hours of sleep or something?”

“No, I think that’s old people like you.”

 

* * *

The visit was shitty.

His mom just kept telling him great he was doing, kept reaching over to try to grab his hands, kept _touching_ and it put him on edge.

His dad kept checking his watch and his phone and frowning. Zoe didn’t come at all. He didn’t blame her. She wasn’t supposed to be here, around these people, around him.

After about an hour of them all sitting at the crappy old table, saying nothing, his dad said. “We should go.”

“Oh,” Connor said. Suddenly he wished he had said something, anything. He wished they wouldn’t go. He didn’t want to go back to his room or the rec room where everyone else would have their parents and partners and friends around. He didn’t want to be by himself. “Okay…”

“You really do look better, sweetheart,” his mom said, reaching out and quickly smoothing down a piece of his hair.

“Thanks,” he said quietly. He didn’t know what was wrong with him, getting sad that they were leaving. He didn’t even want them here in the first place. He never wanted to be around them at home. But they were going to leave and they were going to leave him here and he still had to be here another month and half and he felt like he couldn’t stand to do it. “And thanks. For. You know. Coming today. You didn’t have to do that…”

His mom gave this sad sad smile, and pulled him into a hug. He hugged her back and stepped back quickly. Nothing from Fucking Larry. No handshake or hug or whatever.

They went back out through reception, and Connor felt incredibly idiotic watching them until he couldn’t see them anymore.

_“If they bounce early, come find me. My parents usually overstay their welcome.”_

Connor chewed on his thumb nail.

He stared out the window until he tasted blood. And then took off, heading toward the rec room, deciding to look for Dave. He didn’t know why. He wasn’t good with parents but he knew…

If he went back to his room, Jason would find him, and he knew Jason had a guy in here…

He went and found Dave. He was smiling and talking with a pair of adults in their fifties. They were both smiling, and not in the sad broken way his parents had been. They looked pleased.

“Connor!”

He’d been spotted. He waved as Dave waved him over. “Hey.”

“Mom and dad, this is Connor. He’s my roommate. Connor these are my parents, Dr. Brikowski,” He nodded to the woman, “and Dr. Schwartz.”

“Smart family,” Connor mumbled, shaking hands. “Nice to meet you.”

“Sit down, sit down,” Dr. Brikowski, pulling out a chair. She smiled at him. Connor didn’t get this family. They smiled too much. He sat. “So, Connor, David tells me you’re a big reader! What are you reading right now?”

Connor shot a look at Dave, feeling like somehow his roommate had ratted him out. “Um.” He felt like his answer said too much. “I just finished _Bad Feminist._ ”

“Oh! I was just thinking of picking that up. Was it good?”

Connor nodded, biting his lip. “I. I liked it.”

“So, you’re in high school?” Dr. Schwartz asked.

Connor nodded.

“What year?”

“Senior, in the fall.” He didn’t mention how he’d barely passed his junior year. He didn’t mention he was seriously considering dropping out. He just said he was going to be a senior.

“Well, Dave mentioned that you don’t live too far away from us. If you’re in need of a math tutor at any point, I can help you get set up with one.”

“Thank you,” Connor said softly, his head bowed. He must look like he wasn’t good at math. He’d passed pre-calc with a low C-, and only because he had cheated on the final and got a B on it. He’d been pretty high at the time, and the girl who sat behind him had dropped her study card under his seat, and he took it when she wasn’t looking.

The conversation drifted. Dave’s parents filled him in about his siblings. His brother was being scouted by a few colleges for soccer; they’d come to see him practice even though it wasn’t quite August. His sister had piano solo at band camp.

It all seemed… normal. Like his parents didn’t hate him, even though Connor knew Dave had been estranged from his family for years.

It didn’t seem fake either. Nobody was pretending. Dave seemed to genuinely care about his brother and sister. He asked his mom about how her work was, asking if she had given anymore thought to adding another Orthodontist to her practice (she had decided to do it). He asked his dad how teaching summer classes was going, and he complained about an incoming freshman who refused to drop the class despite the fact that he never showed up.

“Sound familiar?”

Dave snorted. “I majored in skipping class,” He said, nudging Connor.

Connor wanted to quip that Dave had actually majored in getting shitfaced, but he kept his mouth closed.

“How was the visit with your parents?” Dave asked.

“Fine,” he said, shrugging.

“What do your parents do?” Dr. Schwartz asked.

“My dad’s a lawyer,” Connor said. “My mom stays home. She used to teach, but she stopped when.. When my sister and I were born.”

“Older or younger sister?”

“Zoe’s younger than me,” Connor said, looking at the table. “By eleven and half months.”

“A surprise then!” Dr. Birkowski said, laughing a little. “Dana was a surprise too. She’s ten years younger than David.”

Connor nodded mutely, trying not to smirk. _David_. She’d said it twice now. He was so going to give him hell for that later.

“Mom, can you please not traumatize the kid with your sex life?”

“Do you mean Connor or yourself?”

Connor and Dave both laughed.

 

“Your parents are nice,” Connor said at dinner.

“They’re too nice honestly,” Dave said. “I’ve been a real shit to them since high school.”

Connor nodded. He got that feeling.

“So how was the visit with your parents, really? They didn’t stay long.”

Connor shoved a forkful of salad into his mouth and shrugged. He finished chewing and swallowed, “We just. Kind of sat there not talking. My mom kept like. Grabbing at my hands and stuff? I dunno. I sort of wish they hadn’t come.”

“Why?”

“Because they suck?” Connor said dully. “And I suck, like, with them so. I dunno. It was just. Whatever.”

“Parents are tough,” Dave said, nodding. “And it’s not like we’ve made anything easier for them.”

Connor thought of his mom’s face, finding him at that old autoshop downtown where he’d ended up after a fight with Zoe led to a bender, how she’d found him because he’d switched on his phone, how his dad was pissed off because the place where Connor had parked his car was a tow zone and they had to pay like a hundred bucks to get it out of impound. He was used to his dad getting pissed, and when he was younger his mom used to holler her frustrations, but this was. New. She looked crushed, and deranged as she pulled him bodily to the car. She didn’t seem to notice or care about the other guys all high and half dead piled around him, didn’t even blink at the fact that one guy Isaac had a knife and half heartedly threatened her. She grabbed his arm hard enough to bruise and screamed at him the whole way to the car.

And not the shit his dad liked to spew, like how he was throwing his life away.

But how she’d been out of her mind scared, how his sister hadn’t slept, how his grandma was calling everyone she knew in the area asking if they’d seen him. They’d called the police, they’d called all the hospitals, this wasn’t funny. This wasn’t a joke. How dare he do this to them.

At the moment, honestly, Connor thought that seemed pretty rich considering his parents had sent him away last summer and his dad knew he wanted to die but they were both keeping quiet about it.

But.

Looking back on it.

His whole body burned with shame. It was like oxy had muted his feelings but that meant it also muted his ability to give a shit.

It was easier not to care.

But in here, it was impossible not to.

“Yeah,” he said sullenly. “We don’t make it easy on them.”

* * *

 

There was nothing on television that Thursday night, and it was pouring rain so Connor couldn’t even escape outside to smoke. Dave was playing chess with some other tweaker called Gina; she was kicking his ass. All of her clothes were too tight on her now; she had boasted in group that she was finally eating again now that she’d kicked her coke habit.

So Connor sat on the couch, bored. He’d finished his book and they wouldn’t be allowed to make a library run until Monday.

The couch was old. Donated probably. It had sagging cushions and was difficult to climb out of. Connor ran his hand on the inside of the cushion, bored and restless, and then his finger snagged on a staple that was holding down the lining under the cushions.

Connor looked around the room quickly before picking it out with his fingers. His nails were bitten and short, so it took a few tries to get it free, but he managed. He would get up and walk to the bathroom and it would only take a few seconds and then maybe he’d feel a little more normal.

“Connor Murphy?”

He looked up. Annoyed again to be reminded there was another Conor in this fucking hellhole; a heroin addict in his twenties who spelled his name with only one “n.”

“You have a phone call.”

He got up and followed the nurse who had called him, shoving the loose staple into his pocket. He didn’t know who would call him; his mom called on Sundays, only if she couldn’t visit.

He had to stand awkwardly at the reception desk to take the call. Apparently the nurse didn’t know how to transfer calls.

“Hello?”

“Hey.”

Connor’s heart stopped. Zoe.

She didn’t call him. She hadn’t visited, hadn’t written, and he didn’t blame her at all. Last time he’d been home, before the bender, he’d literally hit her when she made a grab for his phone announced to their Mom that he was high at the dinner table, and he smacked her in the side of the head and took the phone back and if his dad had been home Connor would literally have been dead. But Larry wasn’t home and Zoe slapped him back so he shoved her and just started screaming at her about how she was a nosy asshole who was always trying to get him in trouble, how he hated her and her fucking guitar and she wasn’t even good and she should just fucking the fuck away from him because he hated her and she was _stupid, and idiot, a bitch, a cunt_ -

“Look. Mom and dad are giving me shit about not visiting.”

“Oh.” He swallowed. He wanted to tell her to tell them to piss off. He wanted to say that they weren’t being sensitive. He wanted to tell her he understood why she wasn’t there because he didn’t blame her at all. “You don’t have to.”

“I fucking know that. But. Can you have visitors on Saturdays?”

“Zoe don’t come.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck, no, don’t come!” This was coming out all wrong. He was so stupid, so bad at this. He cleared his throat. “I mean. You don’t. Have to.”

“What time on Saturdays?”

“Ten until two.”

“Fine. Bye.”

“Bye.”

Connor handed the phone back over the desk to the nurse, and walked slowly back to the rec room. Dave had officially lost to Gina. They were laughing about it because she’d forgotten to call “check,” and then called checkmate.

At the end of freetime, Dave asked him what the phone call was about.

“My sister says she’s coming to visit on Saturday.”

“Huh. That’s big. Good news though, right?”

He nodded.

“My… Aletheia, the girl I was seeing before I came here is coming too.” He shrugged sort of sheepishly. “I’d like to say she’s my girlfriend, but I really fucked that up so.”

Connor smiled ruefully. “I think if she’s visiting, she’s still your girlfriend.” He didn’t know why he was annoyed about that.

“She hasn’t dumped me yet, at least.”

The staple in Connor’s pocket was forgotten.

* * *

 

On Saturday, Connor woke up way before his alarm. The sun wasn’t even properly in the sky yet. He glanced over at Dave’s bed, squinting because he didn’t want to grab his glasses.

Dave was already awake. Sitting on the edge of his twin bed that he was too big for, gnawing on his lip, turning his toothbrush over and over in his hand.

“You’re up.”

“You are too,” Connor accused.

“Nervous?”

Connor typically would have lied, but he was… really fucking nervous to see Zoe. He nodded.

“Same.”

Connor tried to give him a reassuring smile that he was sure came out all serial killery and gross, then turned and started to grab clothes from his dresser. Typically he scooped up whatever looked clean, but this time he exerted a little effort. Picked up his old Nirvana shirt that finally didn’t fit him like a tunic and an old gray cardigan that had been a Christmas present from Zoe his freshman year of high school. Back when they still liked each other enough to buy each other presents. He even grabbed his least holey jeans, and then hurried off the to shower.

After he showered and brushed his teeth and got permission to shave (which he hated doing, but not as much as he hated the weird, grayish stubble the accumulated on his chin and neck if he didn’t).

At breakfast he and Dave both picked at their food.

“I feel like I’m going on a first date,” Dave joked. “Used to have a drink before those.”

Connor nodded because he didn’t know what else to do.

They wait together by reception when ten o’clock rolled around. Aletheia was one of the first people to arrive. She gave Dave a hug when she walked in the doors, and he waved at Connor before heading off to get some coffee in the cafeteria. He waved back, frowning, finding he didn’t like the way they held hands so easily.

But he shook his head. Zoe was coming. He had to get it together.

Connor did his best not to look anxious. He hung near the back of the gaggle, arms crossed, never craning his neck to see or standing on his toes. He kept his eyes fixed on the clock down the hall.

10:15.

10:30.

The gaggle thinned considerably.

10:45.

Maybe she didn’t want to be early. He checked in with the ladies at the front desk. No calls. They assured him that they’d come find him when Zoe got there.

11:45, and he was sitting in the rec room flipping through an old copy of Men’s Health when he heard “Connor?”

He turned around fast, only to have his heart sink when he saw the other, old Conor get up and embrace someone who was probably his mother.

12:45.

He’d said until two. He didn’t really blame her for not wanting to get up early. Maybe she’d been babysitting the night before?

1:45.

She wasn’t coming. He’d known the whole time, but the fifteen minute mark came and went and she didn’t come.

And he didn’t blame her.

But his throat burned all the same. He felt so stupid, so small, so idiotic and pathetic for getting his hopes up. She hated him. He’d made her hate him. He’d scared her and hurt her and hit her and she hated him and he deserved it. Why should she visit? Why would he ever be idiotic enough to expect that she would come? He knew better. He didn’t deserve her spending time on him, with him. He was so fucking stupid, pathetic idiot stupid moron dumbass fucking stupid fuck.

He walked slowly back to his room, hands shoved into his pockets.

When his fingers brushed the staple. It wasn’t ideal.

But it would do.

He turned back toward the bathroom. He had to keep scratching it up and down his arm until he finally saw little tiny droplets of blood. The pain was more of a sting or a burn than he was used to, but it did the job.

When Connor walked out of the bathroom, he could see Dave kissing Aletheia goodbye and he rushed down the hall, out the door to the back porch.

It was insanely stupid to feel jealous.

It was really really stupid. He lit a cigarette, sitting on the back steps, hating every thought in his stupid idiotic fucking moronic thoughts.

Of course Zoe hadn’t come. He didn’t blame her; he wouldn’t have come here to see himself if he was her.

So why was he so…?

“Hey, I thought I saw you run out of here.”

Connor didn’t look up. He took a deep drag on his cigarette. He just wanted to disappear. He was so fucking stupid, he was an idiot, he had gotten his hopes up…

Dave took a seat next to him on the stairs. He lit his own cigarette.

Connor didn’t say anything.

He couldn’t look at Dave without feeling like he was on fire in someway, like he was choking on charcoal, like he was drowning in smoke.

He took another drag.

He felt Dave’s fist lightly tap his knee. Connor ignored it. Dave did it again. And again. And Connor realized he was challenging him to a game of rock paper scissors.

He scoffed. But played anyway. Dave kept winning; Connor always picked scissors.

He noticed he was blushing but tried to swallow that because it was stupid, he was being so stupid. His ears burned and his face burned and he wanted to disappear into thin air.

He played scissors again. A draw.

“You always play scissors?”

“I guess.”

“Want to talk about it?” Dave asked after he’d won like ten times.

“No.”

“I know it sucks… but she probably just wasn’t ready.”

Connor shrugged. “Probably.”

“I get it. Really. I haven’t seen my kid sister since my intervention.”

“Hmm.”

“She punched me.”

Connor nodded.

“She’s twelve.”

“Damn,” He said. He waited for Dave to joke about how his sister was probably in Connor’s grade. It didn’t come. He guessed they weren’t joking about it then. A rarity. “That… sucks.”

Dave shrugged. “I mean, I’m here aren’t it?”

“This place sucks.”

“It does.”

“I don’t want to be here anymore,” Connor mumbled, wrapping his free arm around his knees so that Dave’s hand was pushed away. “I just want to go home.” He sounded so pathetic, so sad, so idiotic and desperate.

Dave sighed. “I know.”

“I don’t even know _why_. They don’t want me there. I hate it there too.”

“They want you there.. Even if they aren’t great at showing it.”

Connor shook his head. “I don’t want to do this.”

“Okay.”

“How’s your _girlfriend_?” God he hoped that hadn’t come out as bitterly as Connor had thought it. Defensive and bitter and idiotic and horrible.

Dave smiled a little. “She’s… she’s great. I’m not sure we are, of course, but she’s good.”

“What does she do again?” Connor asked, hollow.

“She’s a personal trainer and nutritionist.”

“That’s cool.” He stubbed out his cigarette aggressively. Lit a second one. Cool. She was cool. And pretty from what he’d seen in the hall. Nice too, from the sounds of it. God, he was such an idiot, an asshole, he was so stupid.

“You okay, kid?” Dave asked.

He exhaled smoke slowly. Shrugged.

“It’s okay if you’re not.”

“Fine. I’m not,” He said shortly.

“Okay.”

“Well, if you wanna talk about it…”

“I don’t,” he snapped.

“Sorry.”

“Whatever.”


	2. The Cure To Growing Older

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rehab isn't summer camp, and sobriety isn't a picnic. Connor is sorry about something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder that there's a content warning for self harm and suicidal thoughts. Thanks!

Weeks passed. Zoe didn’t call again. His mom did, saying how they were all visiting his grandma for a few days and wouldn’t be visiting that weekend. Said his progress reports looked good. Better.

“Connor.”

He was in his room, reading, after dinner, feeling too worn out to spend time in the rec room. One of the nurses was standing at his door. He looked up to see a nurse standing in baby pink scrubs outside of his door.

“Your caseworker wanted to speak to you quick.”

He got up and followed her to the caseworker’s office.

“Come in,” she said, setting aside some paperwork. “I wanted to speak to you before the end of the day. Have a seat.”

He sat.

She was looking at his file. “It looks like you’ve been doing well, participating in group, no more behavioral issues. There is just one thing I wanted to ask about.”

“Sure.”

“You know we’ve had to ask Jason to leave the program.”

Connor shook his head. He _didn’t_ know. They had stopped talking. “We don’t really talk much anymore.”

“Ah,” She said, smiling. “Well then that is good news. It was mentioned that the two of you had been spending some time together when you first arrived.”

Connor frowned and said nothing.

“Well, then, pending a urine test, it looks like you’re on track to graduate.”

“What?” Connor sputtered.

“You’ve completed sixty seven days already,” She said. “And you’ve improved greatly. The notes I’ve received from Claire and Rebecca say you really seem to be taking your sobriety seriously. So it looks like you should be on track to go home before the end of August.”

Connor stared. “Oh.”

“Connor,” the case worker said, leaning over her desk and smiling. “This is _good_ news.”

He doubted that sincerely.

He walked back to the rec room, feeling like he wasn’t really there. Home. He was going to go home. In less than a month. He’d probably have to go back to school. He’d.

He was doing so math quickly in his head because a thought had just occurred to him. Dave got here two weeks before he had. Dave.

Ought to be finishing. Soon.

Connor threw himself on the abandoned couch and spaced out through half of a rerun of _The Office_. He got up restlessly, finally walking to the smoking porch where he found Dave laughing with Gina.

“Hey,” he said in this voice that sounded low, detached, not his. “Can I talk to you?”

Dave looked surprised, taking a drag of his cigarette.  “Yeah kid what’s up?”

Connor shoved his hands in his pockets. “Privately.”

Gina’s eyes got wide, but she held them up in surrender, put out her cigarette, and headed back inside.

Dave smirked. “What’s got a bee in your bonnet, princess?”

“Knock it off with the pet names. I don’t like them,” He said. Connor sounded stupid. Small. Whiny.

“Sorry.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were graduating?” He’d meant that to be an accusation but it came out pathetic, wimpy, pleading.

“Shit,” Dave said. “How’d you find out?”

“I can _count_ ,” Connor said. “And I just got called in and told that _apparently_ I’m getting out in like three weeks which means… You got here two weeks before me. I can count.”

“I didn’t want to freak you out.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice suddenly having a brand new roommate?” Connor said. “I… what the fuck?”

Dave looked sheepishly down at his feet. “I’m… I haven’t told anybody. Not my family or Aletheia or Allie or Tasha or anyone. You’re literally the first to know.”

Connor stared at him. “Then who’s going to pick you up?”

“I don’t know!” Dave laughed. “I’m freaking the fuck out, man. I’m not sure I’m ready to go.”

“Why? This place is a fucking nightmare.”

“Yeah, well, so is _not_ being here,” Dave said, shaking his head. He looked less… imposing then. He looked like he was scared and confused and young and that the beard and the tattoos were a front. Connor thought he looked weirdly familar, like he’d met him before in a different setting and never realized it. “I have. Fucked this up twice before. Like seriously fucked it up. And if I fuck it up again, my family, Aletheia, my boss… then they’re all done with me. And I. That’s _a lot_ of fucking pressure.”

“So don’t fuck it up again?” Connor said, but it made him sound like an asshole. “Sorry I. I’m sorry.”

“It’s. You’re right. It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine,” Connor said.

“No it fucking isn’t!” Dave was laughing sort of hysterically. “And. Look, okay, I just. I didn’t want to deal with you and your little puppy dog eyes looking all lost and hopeless that I’m leaving okay? Sorry, that was… a shitty thing to do, but I’ve been kind of panicking here. I’ve known for a couple of weeks and I keep sort of hoping that… that there’s something that can keep me here. Make me like, super _extra_ sober. And I just… I didn’t need you looking at me like that. Like I’m you sobriety Jedi master or whatever. I do not have all of the answers.”

“Sorry.” He looked down, face burning, stupid, so stupid, stupid stupid stupid how stupid could he be it was fucking Jared all over again he was an idiot fuck fuck fuck… He was so stupid making this about himself when obviously Dave didn’t care, he was worried about his own shit, of course he was, of course, he was so fucking stupid.

“Look,” Dave was putting out his cigarette. “I’m. I’m sorry. I should have told you when I found out.”

Connor shrugged. He needed to get out of here, drag the staple over his wrist, find Jason’s stash, stop feeling stop all of it.

“Kid -” Dave stopped. Tried again. “Sorry. Connor, look, I don’t… This doesn’t mean we can’t still be friends.”

The words that flew out of his mouth were far more real, honest, vulnerable than Connor was prepared to deal with. “We’re… we’re friends?”

Dave gave him this pitying look. “Yeah, dude, we’re friends. I like, care about you and shit. All that mushy stuff that freaks you out because your dad doesn’t believe in hugs.”

Connor coughed out a laugh.

“Look, you said you live like… fifteen minutes from where I work. We can hang out sometimes if you want or whatever. Get coffee, go to a don’t-do-drugs meeting. Maybe if Aletheia still likes me we can con her into cooking for us sometime. She’s seriously like a genius in the kitchen. Oh, and I can meet your parents! And they can hate me because I look like I’m in some sort of lumberjack gang, and I’ll bother your dad because I love a good hug. It’ll be fun.”

Connor smiled a little. “Thanks.”

“You can handle two weeks without me,” Dave said.

“Yeah, obviously,” Connor said, but it still made him feel less like finding something to hang himself with in the showers. Not much. But a little less.

* * *

 

It wasn’t a great day.

His mom called, and Connor took the call because he got the stink eye from the nurse who grabbed him when he dragged his feet.

“Hi mom.”

“Hi sweetheart. How are you?”

“Alright,” he said, staring down at this shoes. “Um. I’m supposed to tell you that I’m… I’m going to, um,  graduate in three weeks.”

“Oh, Connor, that’s wonderful!”

It certainly didn’t feel wonderful. He swallowed. “Um. Yeah.”

She went on for a while. Said she was so proud of him. He wanted to swallow glass. He couldn’t deal with that. He was scared to leave. To go back home. To go back to school.

“Honey?”

“What?”

“I said, your dad and I were thinking of coming up this weekend.”

“Oh. Sure.”

Saturday was Dave’s last day.

“We’re trying to convince your sister to come with us…”

“Don’t,” He said shortly.

“Connor, I just want the two of you to -”

“Mom, I’ve got to go.”

“Oh, alright honey, I’ll talk to you soon. Love you.”

“Bye.”

In their room, Dave was starting to pack things up. He had a suitcase that he was filling with jeans and flannels.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“You look like shit,” Dave said.

Connor shrugged. “I feel like shit.”

“Mom called, huh?”

Connor flopped himself on his bed. “She’s proud of me, apparently.”

“Shit.”

“You tell anyone yet?” Connor asked.

“Yeah. Aletheia is picking me up.”

“Oh.”

“My parents are sort of annoyed, actually, because Dana has a piano recital that day and I didn’t tell them until the last minute. She’s hoping to go to this magnet school for high school in a few years and the recitals are important and… yeah. Aletheia’s coming to get me Saturday morning.”

“You… cool? With your girlfriend picking you up?”

“She’s got a name,” Dave said, sounding annoyed.

“It’s kind of a weird name,” Connor said cruelly.

Dave chucked a pillow at his head. “Stop being a brat.”

Connor, to his own surprise, actually laughed.

“I’m fine with her picking me up,” Dave said. “But we’re… probably going to have to have a few long conversations, which. You know. Will be tough.”

Connor nodded.

“But I’ve already been set up with a therapist and found a couple of meetings nearby. And I’m supposed to start back at work soon too.”

“How badly are you freaking out?”

“I’m basically shitting myself,” Dave said, smiling bitterly. Then, brightening, he said. “Hey wait. Give me your number.”

“What?” He’d been without his phone for so long that he kind of forgot about having one.

“Your phone number. So I can text you once we’re both out.”

Connor blinked a few times, then got up. Dave was shoving a notebook and pen at him, Connor printed his number as neatly as he could manage.

Dave smiled. “I’ll text you.”

“Sure.”

“I mean it.”

Dave was smiling. Connor frowned.

* * *

 

“How are you doing, though?” Dave asked, hours later, once it was lights out.

“I’m sleeping,” Connor complained. He wasn’t sleeping, not even close, but he didn’t want or need Dave knowing.

“Bull. You’ve seemed spacey. Everything okay?”

“Sure. Yeah.”

“Bull. Quit lying.”

“Lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off.”

“But it’s better if you do,” Dave said with a laugh. “My brother listened to that shit for a minute there. All that Panic at the Fall Out or whatever.”

“Hmm.”

“I uh. I still have his old iPod? It’s like a classic one, with the clicker wheel? Are you even old enough to remember those?”

Connor sighed. “I dunno.”

“Anyway… it got wrecked, in the crash when he died. But I kept it. It doesn’t work, and the screen is broken, but I held onto it.”

“That’s… cool. Of you to do.”

“I dunno,” Dave said. “I was asking about you.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”

“So?”

“So, like. That sucks. What can I do?”

 _Don’t leave,_ Connor thought, _don’t abandon me here._

“I’m fine.”

“Okay, look,” Dave said. He switched on the lamp, and pulled out that same notebook that Connor had written his number in a few days before. He scrawled out some digits, but Connor couldn’t read them without his glasses. Dave ripped it out of the notebook. “Here’s my number.”

“Okay?” Connor said, squinting at him.

“I want you to call me if… Just call me, if you’re not fine.”

“Why?”

“Well, shit kid, because I worry.”

Connor scowled at him. “Don’t.”

“Try and stop me,” Dave said, and Connor could tell he was smiling even if he couldn’t see it.

* * *

 

Dave was leaving.

Dave was leaving rehab.

And Connor was absolutely freaking out. Not that anyone would know. In their last group therapy session, Claire singled him out.

“You and Dave have spent a lot of time together. How are you feeling about his transition out?”

He shrugged. Arms crossed. Eyes on the floor. “I guess, um. I’m happy for him?”

Dave winked at him across the room.

“But. Um. It kind of sucks too, I guess?”

“Why’s that?”

_Because I’ll miss him. Because he’s my only friend. Because I’ve never had one before. Because I’m not ready to be alone again._

“Well I won’t have anyone to bum cigarettes off of anymore.”

Everyone tittered with laughter. Claire frowned.

Connor looked at Dave. “He’s my friend, I guess? So like. It kind of blows that he won’t be here. But it’s good, you know, that he’s going back to real life.” He was lying, pretty aggressively. It wasn’t good, it wasn’t okay, he was freaking the fuck out that Dave was going to go and he’d be stuck in here, alone, and it would suck. But it didn’t feel as shitty as lying to his parents or whatever. He felt like he was doing it for an okay reason. Or whatever.

Group ended. People lined up to hug Dave goodbye. Connor realized, with dread, they might expect that of him in a few weeks’ time. That would suck.

 

“You want to hang out a little while I wait for Aletheia to get here?” Dave asked him. Connor looked up from his book, the one he was barely reading. Dave had just come out of his last individual session, one which dragged him away from breakfast at 8:30.

Connor set down his book. Shrugged.

Got up anyway, and ended up pulling one of Dave’s suitcases to reception. Connor didn’t even remember getting packed for rehab; he imagined his mom must have done it for him. He wondered who had packed Dave.

“Do you have a place to live?” Connor blurted.

Dave turned to look at him, looking bewildered and a little amused. “Yeah. I’m going to stay with my Uncle Zach until I find an apartment.”

Connor nodded. Dave was grinning. “What?” Connor mumbled, annoyed.

“Nothing,” Dave said, but he was smiling this huge smile. It made Connor wish he could shrink into himself before Dave said something weird and all sharey-carey.

Connor waited with Dave in the lobby. A few other people were around; Dave’s therapist, Claire the group facilitator, Gina who played chess with Dave sometimes.

Connor knew it was real when they handed him back this phone. Connor found he was surprised to see it wasn’t totally dead. He didn’t ask if someone had charged it.

And then immediately pulled out a torn out piece of notebook paper, typed Connor’s

number in, and sent a text that said “it’s Dave bitch” followed by a bunch of emojis.  He showed it to Connor, like he was proving it was real. Connor still wasn’t sure he believed it.

“You text me when you get out, okay?

He nodded. A car pulled up out front, parked right outside the doors.

Aletheia, the girlfriend, arrived at the door not long after. She had her pretty brown hair in a ponytail, and Connor noticed, like really noticed, that for a girl she was… pretty buff. Like she looked like she could bench press him with ease.

Huh.

“Hi,” She said to Dave, almost shyly. And he said hi back. And Connor felt like there was this hole in the pit of his stomach that was sucking all of the good and positive shit out of the room into a void where it would disappear forever.

“Aletheia, this is Connor,” Dave was saying, and Connor found himself shaking her hand while Dave explained that they’d been roommates. Aletheia, for her part, seemed to be able to keep the bugging eyes and raised eyebrows to a minimum. He got it a lot, people being surprised by him… he was the youngest person in there.

“Ah, so this is the one you got into trouble with,” Aletheia said, smiling a little. Like she was teasing.

“You’re making it sound like summer camp,” Connor complained. He didn’t mean to, of course, but the words just sort of… happened.

Dave laughed though. So Connor tried to smile, like it was a joke, like it was a why did the chicken cross the road situation.

Dave went over a handful and last minute things with the staff. Then he was hugging Gina, and Claire, and his therapist goodbye.

And Connor was about one hundred and fifty percent sure he’d never see him again.

“Connor, come help us with the bags for a sec?” Dave said, casting a look at Claire quickly to get her approval. Connor thought that was stupid; it was two suitcases and Aletheia could handle them herself if she wanted.

But he grabbed one and followed them out to the waiting car anyways. Dave loaded his bag and immediately grabbed a seat on a bench, tying up his shoelace.

“Okay,” Aletheia announce once the bags were in the car. “Dalton made me promise to make you take a picture.”

Dave rolled his eyes.

Connor muttered something about summer camp.

And before he knew it, Dave had hauled him into the picture too, yanking him down on the bench by his elbow. Connor grimaced as he heard the photo click, worrying about his greasy hair and the way his ears stuck out when it was up and the fact that he’d slept like shit for weeks and was squinting in the sun.

“What’s the picture for?” Connor asked.

“To remind me not to end up back here,” Dave said, smiling, almost cheerful.

“That’s idiotic.”

Dave shrugged. “Maybe third time’s the charm.”

Aletheia smiled at them, then checked her watch. Dave seemed to know that meant it was time to go.

“Alright kid. Fuck,” He shook his head. “Sorry, my brain defaults to that or princess. I know you hate it.”

Connor shrugged. “It’s not so bad.”

“Text me the second you get out. No jokes, the second the phone is in hand, I expect to hear from you.”

“Sure.”

“Don’t do any fucking drugs.”

Connor smiled. “Sure.”

“I mean it.”

“Alright, alright. Jesus.”

Dave smiled. “I’m going to hug you now.”

“Do you have to?” Connor said.

Dave sighed. “Well no. But I figured if I asked for one, you’d be weird about it.”

“Point taken.” He let Dave hug him anyway; a bro hug, lasting like .5 seconds.

“Okay. See you soon.”

“Yeah. Sure. Bye.”

Aletheia waved, saying good luck. Connor said thanks. He watched them drive off and headed back inside. Claire was waiting anxiously to remind him that they’d have an additional group session that evening to talk about the transition.

Connor, however, locked himself in a bathroom stall. Shoved the collar of his shirt into his mouth. He let himself freak out for a minute, just one, just so he didn’t actually punch anyone or kill something. He banged his fist against the tile, pleased with the pain that shot up his hand, his arm.

Then he wiped his face, found it mostly dry, and went to wash his hands.

He went to his room. Just his now. And picked up his book. Within a few minutes, a nurse grabbed him to say that his parents were there to visit.

* * *

 

The last two weeks were utter torture. Connor felt like his brain was banging against his skull, and everything seemed to make him anxious. His jaw ached when he woke up in the morning; on Monday his new roommate (an overly thin tweaker named Jake who was probably about Connor’s age and had a pierced nose) complained that he was grinding his teeth.

His individual therapy with Rebecca felt awkward, because he’d spent the whole time he was there lying through his teeth about his fucked up hellscape of a brain, and now that it looked like all of that nonsense had been bought, he sort of wished he’d never said any of it.

He wished the therapist had never believed him.

He couldn’t fucking do this. He wasn’t trying, he didn’t _get_ sober, he just… was sober.

He lied and lied and pretended to be fine but he wasn’t. He wasn’t fine but now it was too late.

Claire kept calling on him in group, because it was one of the people who had been there the longest. He hated it. He hated pretending like his leaving would impact any of the other people in this room. He was like a shadow, something impermanent and unreal that didn’t stick in the brain. They’d all forget him.

With one week to go, Connor got a phone call from his mom. She sounded upset.

“Hi honey.”

“Hi mom.”

“I know we’d… we’d talked about all of us doing dinner the night you get home, but, your sister can’t seem to get off of work. I’m so sorry. She’s really trying to swap shifts with someone, but she hasn’t had luck yet.”

“You don’t have to lie mom,” Connor said, his voice coming out more tired than he meant it to. “It’s fine.”

“I’m sorry sweetheart… this has just been hard on Zoe.”

Hard on Zoe. Right. Hard on her. “I understand. It’s fine, really. I’m not mad.” He wasn’t even mad. He was just. He just. Expected this now.

“We’ll see you next Saturday, okay?”

“Yeah. Sounds good.”

* * *

 

Connor was surprised, with four days to go, to receive a call from Dave of all people.

“Hey princess, how’s it going?”

“Fine,” He said.  “How’s life on the outside?”

“Scary,” Dave said with a laugh, “but overall not so bad sober. You might want to try it.”

“Sure.”

“So, I’m calling because Aletheia and my family are throwing a little welcome back, thanks for not being a drunk asshole all the time anymore party for me on Sunday. I know it’ll literally be your second day out, so I get if you’ve got better shit to do, but if you don’t then you should come.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

“Like… a party?”

“More like a… like imagine a kid’s birthday party, but without the pinata?”

Connor hadn’t attended any birthday parties since the third grade when the rule about having to invite everyone ended. “Okay…. I’ll. Where is it?”

“The tattoo parlor. I’ll text you the address, okay?”

“Alright.”

“Talked to your sister yet?”

“Not yet,” Connor said without conviction. He wasn’t even trying to talk to her. He hadn’t been trying the whole time he was here. He didn’t do trying. Mostly he’d just sort of accidentally happened into this whole sobriety thing by following Dave around like a pathetic lonely puppy. He’d probably fuck it up the moment he got out of here.

“It’ll happen. Just give her some time.”

“Talked to _your_ sister yet?” Connor countered.

“I saw her yesterday. Tried to talk to her, but she mostly just ignored me. It sucks, but she has a right to be angry so I’ll… just keep trying.”

“That’s noble.”

“Yeah right. I should have been doing it for years.”

They hung up after that. Connor was starting to get a stomachache from all of the optimism that Dave was spewing.

* * *

 

His parents picked him up on Saturday morning. His mom fussed over him, and his dad drove. He loaded Connor’s luggage without saying much.

Gina showed up to say goodbye, and his therapist and Claire, but it wasn’t the joyful affair that it was with Dave. There was a sense of disapproval in their goodbyes; like a threat, like an unspoken _don’t let us see you here again._

Not. Fucking. Likely.

They handed back his phone, and he was surprised it wasn’t dead. They must charge them, Connor thought. He stared as he watched a few texts float in.

Three months without a phone, and he had a grand total of five missed texts.

Four were from Dave, two from that morning saying, “Are you out?” both times. The first was the one where he explained it was Dave. Another with the address of the tattoo parlor. He texted back, “Out now.” Just so he wouldn’t keep getting more from Dave.

The last was from his weed guy. Connor deleted it.

Look mom, no drugs.

Connor’s mom tried to sit in the backseat with him, and Larry grumbled “Jesus Christ Cynthia, he’s not a newborn.”

It was a rare moment of agreement between the two of them.

A summer of rare moments.

Larry agreeing with Connor. Zoe agreeing he should kill himself on the day he left.

Would the wonders never cease.

His mom reluctantly climbed into the front seat, but she spent a good portion of the ride

turned around, trying to talk to him, asking if he wanted to stop for lunch on the way home. He shrugged. Eventually when he couldn’t take her hopeful eyes on him anymore, he mumbled that he was tired and closed his eyes, head against the window. She was quiet then.

He did that. She was so happy to see him and he was hurting her feelings because he just sucked at this.

He felt like he was going to be sick when he saw his dad was turning onto their street. His entire plan for the rest of his life was to slink upstairs and sleep.

“We’re home!” His mom practically sang.

Connor tried to conjure up a smile for her, but it came out wrinkled and dead, dried up.

He followed his parents inside, grabbing his own bags. His dad didn’t wait; he just went in the house.

Connor caught his mom’s face, her deep frown. “Welcome home,” She said, looking crestfallen.

Connor waited. Followed her in the house. Waited again. For the lecture, for the new rules, but his mom just rushed after his dad when the door to his office closed.

Connor carried his bags up to his bedroom. His room looked mostly the same, but he could tell that they’d gone through his stuff. His bong was missing.

He sighed.

Shoved his suitcases into the corner.

And threw himself on his bed.

Why was he surprised? Why was he surprised?

 

He woke up an hour later, to his mom tentatively knocking on his door. He’d drooled on his pillow. Fantastic.

He sat up and blinked at her.

“You really shouldn’t sleep in your contacts,” She said.

He frowned.

“I thought we could go shopping.”

He stared at her, bewildered. “Why?”

“School is starting soon, and your clothes…” She didn’t say anything rude, really. The gap was probably just “are all from the army navy surplus store and you’re embarrassing me” but she didn’t spit it out. “I just thought it might nice to get some new things for your senior year.”

He pictured her dragging him through the mall, the whole standing outside of the dressing room and trying to make him show her clothes thing. He didn’t want to fucking do that at all.

But she was looking so sad and mom-like, and Connor inexplicably thought of Dave and his not-shitty parents coming to visit him and how they were able to talk and things weren’t total bullshit and he found himself saying, “Sure. We can go shopping.”

She looked so happy, he wanted to puke.

Ten minutes later, they were strapped in his mom’s SUV. And Connor was regretting everything already. She’d switched on some classic rock station and started singing along to Joy Division like this was some kind of peak mother/child bonding and Connor genuinely started to think about just tucking and rolling out of the car. Like thanks for the reminder you used to have a soul, mom, but no thanks.

He closed his eyes for a second, trying not to hear “love will tear us apart” in his mom’s warbly soprano, trying to just think about not being such a shitty kid for like a fucking minute for a change.

“So… how was your summer?” he tried. He knew it fell super flat, he caught her eyes flick over to him in surprise in the rearview mirror.

“Oh!” She said. “It was… alright. I. I did some volunteer work…”

“That’s cool. Doing what?”

She started talking all about how she had put in some hours at a food pantry downtown, and how she was volunteering for a rape crisis line. “I used to do that in college, but then you kids… anyway, you’re older now, so I thought…”

“That’s… really cool mom,” Connor said, trying super hard to sound like he meant it. Which he did. Like. Trying to help people was, like, a good thing.

Though part of him was also stupidly, like, jealous. She’d take calls from strangers and talk about their shit, but she couldn’t even look at him, her kid, in rehab. It didn’t seem fair. But maybe not knowing them was better.

He wondered if she’d give more of a shit, if she’d try harder if he was just some random kid she’d pulled out of that old garage at the end of May.

They got to the mall and he was really starting to fucking regret this. He was going to fuck this up, he was going to do something stupid.

“Where should we go first?”

He shrugged. “You pick. I don’t… know stuff about clothes.” That wasn’t strictly true. He just prefered shopping at thrift stores because people didn’t fucking look at you there.

She headed off toward some department store, the kind that was stuffy and full of perfume salespeople and clothes that looked like stuff his dad would wear.

They debated some jeans for a while. His mom pointed out that most of his jeans had the knees torn out. He didn’t even know why, he didn’t think he fell enough to warrant it. He shrugged, shuffling off with three pairs to the dressing room. He knew his mom was waiting outside, but he wasn’t coming out to show them to her. That was too embarrassing, even for him. The first pair was way too short; he could see his entire ankle. The second pair fit okay, but they were baggy, and he didn’t want that. The last pair were okay. Dark gray, right style, not too short or too big.

He changed back, holding the pair that fit. “These are okay.”

“I wish you’d shown me how they fit,” His mom said, frowning.

“Sorry, I wasn’t sure if you were out here.” Lying to his mother, like always.

She smiled then. “Okay. Want to get two pairs? Since you like those?”

“Sure.”

They ended up in an H&M next, where his mom convinced him to buy a gray flannel. She tried to ask if he needed new underwear, but he was pretty sure he died of embarrassment before she finished asking. She dropped it, thankfully. They went through so many stores that Connor started to think his mom needed to go to rehab for a shopping addiction. He was exhausted.

As she dragged him through a J.C. Penney, Connor caught a glance of someone who looked vaguely familiar, like from school, looking at a pair of khakis, and finally begged his mom to take him home.

“Please,” he said, trying not to sound whining or horrible or any of the things he knew he was. “Sorry, it’s...I’m just.. I’m really tired, and these clothes are really nice…”

“Oh, sweetheart, sure.” She gave him a painful looking smile, like her lips were closing over spikes instead of teeth.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Don’t worry, honey. This should be enough to get you through the first week of school at least.”

He nodded. They headed off to the car, and Connor tried hard to just. Be normal. Be not a moody, pathetic junkie.

The ride home was silent, apart from the quiet sounds of Nirvana that his mom was clearly playing trying to please him. He wanted to appreciate it. He wanted to be moved by this small way she was trying to make him happy. But he just didn’t have it in him. He had nothing to give her, just a wrinkled smile and pathetic sad eyes.

When they got home, Connor took the new clothes upstairs. He put the bags next to his suitcases. He couldn’t unpack. He wanted to collapse.

“You’re back.”

He turned, looking at Zoe. The blue streaks that had been in her hair were gone, leaving behind some blond pieces.

“Uh,” he said stupidly, caught off guard, his brain completely blank, slick, nothingness none of those coping mechanisms and game plans he’d worked out in the last few weeks. “Hey.”

“Yeah. Hey,” she said back, rolling her eyes. “How was rehab?” She was so clearly being sarcastic, spitting fire at him, and whatever stupid pathetic coping mechanism might have lingered in his mind crumpled.

“Fuck you,” he said, very little venom in it.

“Fuck you!”

He slammed the door in her face. And waited for the footsteps on the stairs, the charge of his dad coming to shout at him.

Nothing happened.

Eventually his mom knocked to get him for dinner. It was tense. The food was better than when he left; apparently they weren’t Buddhists anymore. His dad never looked up from his phone. Zoe didn’t eat, just swirled her peas into her potatoes into her steamed kale thing.

“We’re so glad to have you home, Connor,” his mom said.

The proclamation was met with total silence from his dad and Zoe.

Connor swallowed, practically choking, his throat trying to close. “Thanks.”

Nobody said anything else.

* * *

 

His mom didn’t think he should go anywhere.

“You just got home, honey, I think right now should be family time -”

“Family time?” Zoe scoffed over her toast, sitting at the table. “You mean when we all sit in separate rooms on our phones, ignoring each other?”

“Zoe, honey, that’s not…” She looked helplessly at his dad, who shrugged. “Well where is that you want to go?”

“The library.”

“It’s Sunday.” Larry, chiming in, helpful as always. “Aren’t they closed?”

“They have extended summer hours,” His mom said, frowning. “I… well. I. Larry, help me out-”

“Let him go,” Larry said.

“He _just_ got out of rehab, do you really think that’s best idea?”

“Mom,” Connor said, mumbled, rasped. “I just want to go get a few books.”

“Fine,” She said, throwing up her arms, clearly upset. “Go. Just go. Your keys are on the hook. Be back before it’s dark, Connor, and text us to check in every couple of hours, I’m serious-”

He was gone before she could change her mind. He actually _did_ go to the library, just as a cover. Dave texted to confirm he was coming, and he said he was, and as soon as he sent the message, Connor didn’t know why.

Why was he going?

Dave was his friend. Or so he said. Dave invited him. It was probably a joke.

He got in the car after a tragically short hour at the library, following the directions on his phone. He realize driving was weird after a three month break. But there was an unopened pack of cigarettes still in the glove compartment so at least there was an upside.

The drive wasn’t too long, fifteen minutes at best, but once Connor spotted the tattoo parlor he circled the block four times, trying to convince himself to park. Just park and get it over with. Just park.

He didn’t want to be doing this he didn’t want to do this.

His phone buzzed as he finally picked a parking spot a few blocks away.

It read: “There’s this blue car circling the block. Hope it’s you and not a hit someone put out on me.”

Connor replied, “Could be both.”

But he turned off the ignition and ran a hand through his hair, got out of the car, straightened his stupid clothes - hoodie, vest, t-shirt, jeans - and checked to make sure his shoelaces weren’t untied. He snapped the hair tie on his wrist a few times, until his wrist stung, and started to walk.

His head was a fucking mess, he was imagining a _Carrie_ level bullshit scenario, pig’s blood and all, and just. Why was he doing this? He didn’t do parties, or people…

He walked up the to the tattoo shop, with a sign on the door that read “closed for private event” and he was seriously just going to need to turn around, to just fucking leave, and then the door opened. And Dave was there, all bearded and smiling, and he said hi and Connor said, “Uh-” and then Dave basically picked him up and carried him inside. Connor sputtered and tried to protest but then he was inside and there were all of these people, happy chatty people, and all this art on the walls and a sign that said “congratulations” and Connor was pretty sure he was going to lose it.

Dave just kept talking, pointing out that there was food, introducing him rapidly to people that Connor couldn’t get straight in his head - Dalton, Dana, Tasha, Allie - and then he was sitting on a sofa, staring at his phone, trying to just… process.

Too much too soon he wasn’t cut out for people.

Naturally, a moment later Dr. Brikowski took a seat beside him. “Hello again Connor,” She said, smiling at him.

“Uh… hi Dr. Brikowski….”

“How is being home?” She asked, and she was smiling, and she was being too nice.

“It’s… it’s alright?” It sounded like a question. “It’s weird.”

She smiled. “I can imagine.”

He tried to smile at her, look polite not like a total psycho, and it didn’t make sense that he was here, with this family, this happy, relatively normal family.

“Are you hungry?”

He wasn’t, but he nodded.

“So am I, let’s go get something to eat why don’t we?”

So he followed Dave’s mom around, listening as she explained how Dave’s girlfriend had done most of the cooking, insisting that he tried a little of everything. His plate was absolutely loaded, and he’d never actually eaten that much in his life, and then Dr. Brikowski was off talking with one of the people Connor had met.

“Sorry,” Dave had reappeared. “I had to make sure I talked to some people before they left.”

“It’s cool.” He shoved a forkful of some kind of salad thing into his mouth because chewing meant not talking.

“Yeah, I mean, it was cool of them to even come at all…”

Connor nodded. Finished chewing. Swallowed. Wondered if he actually liked quinoa or if he was just used to eating it at this point. “How’s… um? How’s being back?”

Dave actually smiled. “I found an apartment.”

“Awesome,” Connor said, trying to smile. He probably had kale in his teeth. “Is it close by?”

“Yeah, it’s a couple of miles from here, so I can like… walk in the summer or whatever.”

“Cool. Are you back at work?”

Dave nodded. “Yeah, I went back last week. It was weird, not having done it for a while… Allie’s watching me like a hawk, which is fine.”

Connor nodded. Shoved more food into his mouth. Pushed more food around. Picked some broccoli out of his food.

“Did I just see you pick broccoli out?”

Connor looked up. Dave’s girlfriend, Aletheia, was frowning at him. “Wh-what?”

“The food, did you just pick out some broccoli?”

There was a camera flash from the other side of the room. Connor blinked in surprise. “Um…” Connor’s eyes slid over to Dave, who looked like he might start laughing. “Yeah.”

“You look like you’re going to get scurvy.”

“What?”

“How often do you eat vegetables? Whatever it is, you need to double it. Unless it’s never, because then you need to start introducing them right now.” There was another camera flash. “You should eat the broccoli.”

“Um.”

Dave got up, hugging Aletheia from behind. “Connor, did I mention that Aletheia is a nutritionist?”

“Oh,” Connor said. “Um. Cool.” Yet another camera flash.

Alethia grinned. “Sorry, I’m totally the mom friend. I keep sneaking spinach into smoothies and giving them to my friend Katie.”

Connor kind of smiled back at her.

“It’s not to like, properly meet you,” She said.

“Oh. Um. You too.”

“I’m a hugger,” Aleathia said and Connor started to say he wasn’t, but then she was taking his plate and putting it down and hugging him and another camera went off, and Connor’s heart rate skyrocketed.

“Is someone taking pictures?” He asked, pulling away slowly and trying to sound like it was just a picture and not something making him feel like he was going to explode.

“My brother Dalton is really into photography,” Dave said, smiling fondly at a kid with a curly mop of hair wearing a Dunder Mifflin shirt.

“Oh. Cool.”  

He was going to die here in this tattoo parlor.

Dave led him over to like, introduce him to Dalton again, who seemed to be trying to figure out just what the fuck Connor was doing there. Connor was also wondering the same thing.

“So you two were roommates?”

Connor nodded.

“How’d you put up with the sleeptalking?” Dalton asked, smiling a little. “We used to go camping every year and it would keep us all up all night.”

Connor smiled back a little. “I just tune him out even when he’s awake.”

Dave gave Connor a playful shove, smiling. “Snot.”

Dalton started to ask where Connor went to school, and he muttered, “Oh I uh go to Central, sorry, I’ll be right back...” and he faked needing to use the bathroom so he could duck outside and smoke. Because socializing was fucking hard.

It was warm outside, and sunny, and Connor realized how he wasn’t used to being alone but wasn’t used to be around people either.

“Caught you.” He heard a minute later.

“Fuck off,” Connor whined at Dave.

“It’s cool, I was gonna come out anyway.” He lit his own cigarette. “I’m quitting these next.”

“You’re not going to be any fun anymore,” Connor teased and Dave shoved his shoulder a little.

“Don’t be a dick.”

“Fine,” Connor said. He took another drag on his cigarette and realized he’d literally never considered quitting. He’d probably fuck it up anyway. He was only sober on accident. “Having fun at your party?”

Dave nodded, “Yeah, I guess. It’s a weird fucking party.”

“It is.” He flicked ash off the end of his cigarette. “Your girlfriend is nice. Intense though.”

“I know, right?” Dave said, this sort of weird dreamy look overtaking his face. It sort of made Connor want to puke a little. “She’s just… perfect.”

“You get the food lectures too?” Connor asked.

“Please, of course I do. If left to my own devices, I will eat nothing but Chipotle.” He chucked. “But I always get veggies, so that’s something.”

Connor snorted.

“She’s got me going to the gym with her sometimes, though, which has been surprisingly fun.”

“Please tell me you’re in a zumba class,” Connor said, laughing.

“Zumba can be fun,” Dave said. “I gotta stand in the back though. Too tall.”

That cracked Connor right up. “You’re serious!”

“You’ve got to stop living in this world where gender defines everything, even exercise,” Dave said, still smiling. “Mostly I’ve been doing some lifting, but yeah, I’ve gone to a fucking Zumba class. I danced to Ricky Martin and it was super fun.”

Connor laughed so hard that tears came to his eyes.

They finished smoking, and Dave asked Connor if he wanted to come back inside. “You

totally don’t have to. I get that this is a lot of new people and you’ve been home for like a minute.” Connor went inside anyway.

Dave pulled Connor into a conversation with Allie, his boss who owned the tattoo shop. She rolled her eyes at Dave a lot, but she didn’t look at Connor like something that ought to be squashed. Instead, halfway through the conversation, she looked at Connor and asked who did his ears.

“Oh.” He looked at Dave quickly.

“Because if they were done at a Claire’s, you might as well just take the studs out now and try again. They’ll give you problems for the rest of your life.”

“No,” Connor said, shaking his head. “No, no it…” he trailed off mumbling some bullshit about a friend of his mom’s. Like his mom would know not to get your ears pierced at a Claire’s. That’s definitely where Zoe got hers done as a kid.

“Allie is really committed to doing things the right way,” Dave said, smiling at her.

“Hey, I know what works.” She smiled at Connor, who was sort of looking a photo of someone’s intricate owl tattoo on the wall. “That’s Dave’s,” she said, smiling. “How long until you’re old enough to be here, then?”

“What?” Connor asked, bewildered.

“Kid, there are people who want tattoos and people who consider them. I can always tell. So how long until you’re eighteen?”

“September.” He said. Quiet.

“Great, make sure you tell Dave. He’ll probably give you a birthday discount.”

Connor pulled the sleeves of his hoodie over his hands, thinking about his mutilated arms, frowning. Yeah, sure. He’d be tattoo ready in two and a half weeks.

Get real.

The party was okay, honestly. Once he got used to all of the people. Aletheia got on him about vegetables again when he jokingly asked her if green skittles counted. Dr. Schwartz and Dr. Brikowski both asked after him, asked how his parents were doing, insisted that they give Connor their numbers so he could give them to Larry and his mom if they ever wanted to talk to other parents who had done the whole rehab rodeo already.

Of course, throughout all of this, Connor noticed that this kid, this girl, standing in the corner staring at her phone was sometimes… was staring at him. It kind of freaked him out. She was young, like probably still in grade school, judging by the fact that she was wearing overalls and pink Keds and was shorter than everyone here by at least a foot and a half. Connor thought that Dave’s sister was in middle school at least….

But she kept staring, and Connor kept looking back and seeing her looking at her phone and feeling like, really paranoid, like she might be… he didn’t know, taking his picture and making fun of him in a group chat with her friends or something.

“Sorry about Dana,” Dr. Brikowski said after a while. “She’s having a hard time with Dave being back.”

“Oh.” His mind jumped to Zoe, to the night before, to slamming the door in her face and her glaring at him through dinner. “Yeah, that… I get that.”

“She just doesn’t want to even talk to him, so we’re giving her space.”

“Sure. Yeah.”

After a few more times catching Dana looking at him, Connor… he didn’t know what to do, this twelve year old was staring at him so... He went to say hi. Like. He couldn’t fuck up that badly saying hi to a twelve year old, right? Maybe he could practice not being crazy.

She looked very surprised when he crossed the room toward her. He half expected she’d run away and then, great, now he scared Dave’s twelve year old sister like Jesus Christ could he ever just be fucking normal?

“Hey,” He said, approaching cautiously. She hadn’t run, but her face looked pink. “You’re Dana right?”

She nodded, her phone still in her hands, looking a little dumbstruck. “Yep, yes… yeah.”

“I’m Connor,” he said, like wincing because yeah this is how you interacted with children

totally.

“Nice to meet you.”

“Thanks. Nice to meet you too.”

Twenty five seconds of painful silence. Connor sighed. “So… your brother, um, Dave, he… said you play piano?”

Her eyebrows flew up. “He did?”

“Yeah, he mentioned you had a couple of recitals and concerts over the summer. That’s… cool.”

Dana shrugged. “I guess.”

“No, it is. I heard you’re really good.”

“How would Dave know?” She said, frowning.

Connor frowned. Okay, so that… didn’t work. “I used to play piano, um, actually?”

Her whole face seemed to light up. “You did?”

“Yeah,” Connor said, regretting saying something. “Until high school?”

“How come you stopped?”

He shrugged. Dana seemed to be waiting eagerly for an answer, but telling her “I got super pissed at my piano teacher, threw a fit in his living room, smashed his bench and tried to flip his baby grand” was not twelve year old appropriate. The seconds ticked by awkwardly, and Connor tried to invent a polite reason to just… not be standing near her anymore. “It didn’t really… fit with my schedule.”

“Oh.”

Another pause.

“I like your hair,” She said suddenly.

Connor tugged on a piece of it self consciously, thankful he had actually washed it this morning. “Thanks. Your, um, outfit is cool.”

She _blushed_ then. Her face went totally pink. Connor’s brain was like a siren, shrieking ABORT MISSION. “Thanks.”

“It was really nice to meet you,” He said quickly, hurrying off toward the bathroom for real this time. Jesus Christ.

When Connor exited the bathroom, he was relieved to find Dave, talking to Tasha and Aletheia, talking about a piercing that Tasha had done for a five year old little girl. “She was so cute,” Tasha said. “She told her mom she wanted a nose ring next.”

“Adorable,” Aletheia said, smiling.

“Is it ethical to pierce someone under the age of consent?” Dave said. “I still feel sort of iffy about that.”

Connor snorted, and Dave glared at him, and Aletheia smiled a knowing smile. Connor decided that he liked her. He didn’t know why. Something about her not being scared to scold him and smiling at Dave for the idiotic ear piercing… He liked her.

“I need to get going,” Connor said after a while. He’d watched a few other people leaving, noticing, a little uncomfortable, that a lot of them said “Love you, bye” as if it was the most casual, normal way to leave a party. He decided to go before his awkwardness turned into his own special brand of acting like an asshole.

“Sure thing, yeah.” Dave clapped him on the shoulder and Connor found himself worried he was about to get a “love you, bye” too.

Dr. Brikowski, who had been standing nearby insisted that Dalton take a picture of Dave and Connor before Connor went home. They snapped one, under the banner that read “Congratulations!” and then Connor ducked out.

Dave waved him off after, telling him, somewhat affectionately, “Don’t do drugs.”

He felt okay on the drive home. He hadn’t done anything stupid, or awful. No drugs, no booze, nothing. The sun was still up, so he was obeying his curfew. He’d been okay.

First time for everything.

He got home to find his parents sitting around the kitchen table, both of them on their phones.

“Oh my god,” His mom said, “Chris, he’s here. I’ll call you back.”

“What’s going on?” Connor asked, slowly.

“What’s going on?” Larry repeated, looking livid. “You said you were going to the library.”

“I did,” Connor said, holding up the two books he checked out.

“We’ve been calling you since _five_ ,” His mom said, looking close to tears. “The Harrises brought over food for dinner, and you didn’t pick up. And we called the library, and they said you left hours before. Where have you been?”

 _Fuck_.

Connor bit down on his lip. “I was…”

“You’ve been home for less than two days,” his dad said, his voice shaking with rage. “Are you high?”

“ _No_ ,” Connor said, indignant.

“So then you’re just stupid,” Larry continued, “because only an _idiot_ wouldn’t remember to check in with their parents the day after they got home from _rehab_!”

“Fuck you!” Connor said, blood pounding in his ears, breathing getting faster, hands curling into fists, thumbs on the outside. He started to walk away, before he hit something, before he lost it.

“Do not walk away when I’m talking to you!”

“ALL OF YOU SHUT UP!” Zoe’s voice, screaming from up the stairs, followed by the sound of a door slamming.

Everyone paused for a second. Then, shooting a dirty look back at his dad, Connor rushed up the steps to his bedroom, slamming the door as hard as he could manage. A second later, he heard the sound of glass breaking, but he didn’t get up to investigate what had broken.

Because part of him thought it was just… him. He was the broken thing. He was broken. He picked up the library books he’d check out and hurled them against the wall. Knocked over his desk chair, swept everything off of the desk, sending a lamp flying so the light bulb shattered against the wall. Everything he saw in his path, he destroyed. An old little league participation trophy, chucked against a wall where it exploded on impact. He knocked down the stand for his old electric keyboard. He kicked the foot of his headboard so hard that it cracked and leaned sideways. He slammed his fist against the mirror that hung on the back of his bedroom door, and watched as a spiderweb crack grew for a few seconds before the glittering glass cascaded onto his bedroom floor, several pieces digging into his skin. And the whole time there was this unholy, awful rushing sound in his head, this howling and screaming like terrible wind and it was only once he was on the floor, in front of his broken mirror, panting and out of things he could easily break that Connor realized that he had been the one making the noise. He had been screaming. His throat burned. His eyes burned.

He should have never come home.

* * *

He didn’t come out of his room at all the next day. He peed into his empty garbage can and refused to unlock his door when his mom knocked. He knew it was gross, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t go out there. He couldn’t look at them, see what they all thought of him. Especially not after that morning, when Zoe and his mom had a huge blow out right outside his door after his mom knocked.

“Why do you even bother? He doesn’t care that you’re freaked out.”

“Zoe, please,” He heard their mom say. “I need to make sure he’s alright.”

“He’s never alright,” Zoe said, “he’s a fucking psycho!”

“Zoe!”

“I mean it! He’s crazy, he’s literally _crazy_ , and I can’t stand being around him -”

“Zoe, that’s enough!”

“Why did you even let him come home?” Zoe had demanded. “He’s an addict and mean and a fuckup psychopath, and he hates everyone, why would you let him come back here?”

“Because he lives here, he’s your brother-”

“That’s not a good reason! He’s ruining everything, and he’s only been home for two days.”

“He’s just having -”

“I swear to god mom, if you try to say it’s just him adjusting, I will throw up. It’s crap and you _know_ it.”

“Zoe-”

“I’m going to stay a friend’s tonight. I can’t fucking be here!”

“Watch your mouth, young lady!”

“I will when you tell him to watch his!”

There was a slamming door, and Connor could hear both of them crying. He felt like he’d swallowed acid. And refused to leave his room. Even when his mom knocked again. Even when his dad threatened to take the door off the hinges (an empty threat, it turned out).

At five in the morning on the second day of Connor’s self imposed exile, when his throat was dry and the smell of piss was starting to get to him, he crept quietly out of his room, gross garbage can full of pee in his hand. He felt like utter shit. He had dried blood on his hands and arms and feet and legs from the shattered mirror. He hadn’t slept.

He was really discomforted to see that the door to the guest room down the hall was closed. That meant one of his parents had slept there.

He dashed to the bathroom before he woke someone up. He gulped down some tap water from one the tiny dixie cups his mom put out, meant to measure out mouthwash. Once in a fit of desperation not to feel something, he’d drank some mouthwash, hoping that the alcohol in there would at least give him a buzz. It didn’t. His second hope was that there was enough flouride to kill him. That didn’t work either.

Connor washed out the garbage can. Pissed in a real toilet. Brushed his teeth, having found a new toothbrush under the sink. Decided to shower.

Crept back to his room, dressed in his dirty clothes because the thought of being caught shirtless, naked by anyone in his family was too much to handle.

“I thought I heard you get up,” his mom’s voice said. She was in his room already, sweeping up the shattered glass.

He set down his garbage can in the hall, standing there barefoot, glaring at her. She quirked an eyebrow at the garbage can, but didn’t question it.

“You wore those clothes already.”

Connor shrugged.

His mom sighed. She was wearing slippers. She crossed to his overturned dresser, drawers hanging open, and collected some clothes for him.

“Get dressed and help me clean this.”

“It’s five in the morning.”

“Good. Then we’ll have all day to discuss your punishment.”

Connor rolled his eyes, but turned back to the bathroom to change. His mom had picked an old t-shirt, super old, that was a little too short and a little too tight around the chest. Connor pulled his dirty hoodie over it.

He and his mom cleaned up his room in silence. She swept up glass; he righted the furniture. She collected books and pens and notebooks that he’d thrown around and put them into neat piles; he picked up the curtains he had ripped down and clothes he had thrown about and returned them to their rightful places. He and his mom disconnected the broken headboard. Within a couple of hours, his room looked livable again.

They didn’t talk the whole time.

“Why didn’t you answer my texts?” She finally asked him as they finished up by vacuuming the floor to make sure not glass was missed.

“I’m not used to checking my phone anymore. It was on silent.” He didn’t say he was sorry.

“Things can’t go back to the way they were before you left.”

“Fine.”

“I want you to be honest with me… did you get high on Sunday?”

He shook his head. “I was just reading.”

She frowned.

“I took the books to a park.”

His mom sighed. “Fine. But this doesn’t happen again, do you understand me?”  
He nodded, trying not to roll his eyes.

“I just want you to be safe, honey.”

“Sure.”

She shook her head, like she was disappointed. She walked out his bedroom door. Connor looked after her, his head buzzing with static.

His brain flashed back to years ago, the thing he didn’t talk about, his mom didn’t know about, the bathroom floor smeared with blood, his dad slapping him awake and cleaning him up and sending him back to bed. The crushing disappointment at making it through the night, at his dad swearing not to say anything…

He swallowed.

“We’re going to start checking your phone and emails.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Well neither was scaring us half to death on Saturday.”

“I’m almost eighteen!” He said, whining, petulant, childish.

“Then you should act like it.” She shook her head and left him alone.

She wasn’t actually going to do that, Connor decided. There was not way she’d bother to check his phone.

He looked at it now, and opened up the browser.

Typed in the phrase “most lethal suicide methods.”

And started to read.

* * *

 

He made it four days out of rehab before he bought weed off of a sophomore behind the Starbucks. He ended up buying Dave lunch so that he didn’t buy any more fucking drugs. Dave thought that was kind of funny. The whole time they ate, Connor worried that Dave would just… know something was going on, and get all Dave about it. Try to talk about feelings or whatever. But he didn’t, and Connor hung around the tattoo parlour that afternoon. He kind of just hung around, half watching Dave tattoo a set of stars behind a girl’s ear. The whole time he chatted with her, asking her if she was in school or whatever. She mentioned taking a gap year before college, and Connor sort of got lost in the buzz of the tattoo machine.

Dave got off of work at six, and announced to Connor that they were going to a meeting.

“Why?” he asked.

“So we don’t do any drugs idiot. Come on.” Connor reluctantly stood up. “Tell your parents where you are too,” he added, waving to Allie and Tasha and heading out the door.

Connor had a rule about that. He didn’t tell his parents shit. That was the whole rule. But he needed to avoid another meltdown like Sunday, so he texted his mom that he wouldn’t be home until later. He didn’t say where he was or what he was doing. But he texted her.

Dave seemed to like NA meetings for whatever reason. He liked to tell people about how he’d been sober since rehab, how he was on decent terms with his family for the first time in forever, how he was regaining his girlfriend’s trust.

Connor didn’t like meetings. He just felt bad. Everyone else had something tragic to complain about. He had a brain that just. Was wrong.

He picked his nail polish.

“Do you want to come to my new place?” Dave asked him after the meeting let out. “Aletheia might drop by later, but we could order a pizza or something and have her yell at us about how we’re going to die of heart disease.”

Connor shook his head. “Sorry, I should go home.” He shrugged. He sighed. He felt like such a shit head for saying something, for not saying it earlier, for just existing. “My sister’s birthday is today…”

“Oh shit.”

“I’ve been avoiding her… I thought the best present would probably be to stay away from her.” Connor picked his nail polish again. “I...  I wish I could like… unfuck up with her.”

“I know,” Dave said. “I get that.” He clapped Connor on the shoulder. “You apologize to her yet?”

He shook his head. “Not really. I don’t know how.”

“Just start somewhere,” Dave said. “Literally like you could text her right now.”

Connor tried to picture that. _“Sorry about the last five years. Sorry for being an asshole. Sorry about all the times I’ve hurt you and tried to hurt you and sorry I stole money and sorry I didn’t just fucking take myself out.”_

“Maybe,” he said to Dave.

* * *

There wasn’t one particular thing that made up his mind, honestly. It wasn’t like his mom looked at him wrong or Zoe called him an asshole. Nothing like that.

He just woke up that Friday morning and knew he was going to kill himself. It was that simple, it was almost a relief. He was just going to get it over with.

It was that simple.

He did a little bit of googling, and he found this site called CatchingTheTrain.com and they had pages and pages about ways to do it. He made a list in his phone, figuring he could give himself some time to weigh the pros and cons of different methods. Now that he’d made up his mind, he felt like he didn’t need to rush. It was going to be fine and he was going to be dead.

Zoe shot him a dirty look that day when he managed to come down for breakfast.

“I’m surprised you’re awake,” His mom said.

“He used all the hot water too,” Zoe said, glaring. “I was going to shower.”

“Sorry about that,” He said, going for genuine but she just glared harder. “Did you have a nice birthday yesterday?” He’d gotten home after she’d gone out with some friends, and his mom had lectured him, and he lied and said he’d been out trying to find her a present. He’d ended up leaving a set of guitar picks on her desk, a present he’d bought her for Christmas last year but didn’t give her because she had pissed him off on Christmas Eve and thrown her hair straightener at him.

She stared at him suspiciously. “It was fine.”

“That’s good.” He tried to smile at her.

“What the fuck, Connor?”

“Zoe!” His mom snapped from the other side of the kitchen. “We talked about this.”

She rolled her eyes and got up from the table.

His mom sat down beside him. “You need to apologize to her for not being here yesterday,” She said, sounding tired.

He nodded, head bent over his bowl of cereal. “I know. I will.”

“Thank you,” she said. She was looking at him funny.

“What?”

She shook her head. “Nothing, nothing. I was just wondering if you’d let me do something about your split ends.”

He frowned at her. “My hair is fine.”

“I know it is. I was just wondering. It’s your hair. Maybe split ends are in with you kids these days.”  She gave him a smile. “I’m going to be late to yoga.”

“Have fun,” he said.

She looked at him strangely, but then kissed his cheek and headed out.

He rinsed out his cereal bowl, then headed upstairs. He chewed his fingernails for a second, then knocked on Zoe’s door. She did not look happy when she saw him there. “What do you want?”

“Mom said I have to say sorry I wasn’t around yesterday.”

She rolled her eyes. “It was actually nice not having to put up with mom and dad arguing, actually.”

“That’s why I wasn’t here,” He said, shrugging.

“Did you give me these guitar picks?”

“Yeah.”

Zoe stared, then muttered. “Thanks. I guess.”

“Sure.”

“Why are you being weird?”

He shrugged again. “Who knows.”

* * *

 

“Why does Zoe have to drive me to school? I _have_ a car.”

His dad heaved his massive sigh. “Because, when you drove your own car you like to cut classes. So you’re going with your sister.”

“What if I don’t want to drive him?” Zoe shouted. “I don’t want to drive him to school! I’m not his babysitter.”

“Well until we know he won’t use his car to go for joyrides instead of Algebra, you are,” Larry said, shaking his head.

“I’m taking fucking calculus!” Connor said, irritably. His dad didn’t respond, because Zoe had gotten up from the table, shouting how this was so unfair.

“I’m the younger sibling! I’m so fucking tired of being told I have to look after you!”

“Why are you mad at me?” Connor yelled. “I don’t want you to give me a ride either!”

“If you weren’t such a fucking screw up, I wouldn’t have to drive you.”

“Well if you weren’t such a fucking _bitch_ , I wouldn’t be complaining about you driving me.”

“Watch your mouth,” Larry said.

“Fuck you, Connor!” Zoe shouted.

“Fuck you!”

“You’re an asshole!”

“Guys, enough,” their dad cut in, but Connor had gotten out of his chair then.

“Eat a dick, Zoe!”

“Please, if I wanted to you’d have already eaten it!”

“Bitch!”

“Fuck you!”

Connor grabbed his keys and headed out the door as he dad shouted after him to get back there.

 

He texted Dave from the road, a short text, an “I need to go to a meeting” text.

Dave shot back an address, and said he’d be there in twenty.

“You look like hell,” Dave said to him when he got there. Connor shrugged. He had no clue what he looked like. He just knew he felt like garbage.

“You okay?” Dave asked, and he had his concerned face on, he was frowning a little.

“Probably not,” Connor said, shrugging again. All he did was shrug. He was going to shrug out of life in a couple of days like an ill fitting shirt in a dressing room.

Dave nodded. “Well. Meeting’s a good idea then. We can get coffee or something after?”

Connor nodded back. He followed Dave into the church basement. Sat on a folding chair with his head bent down, like he might be sick, like he was keeping them between his knees. He kept bouncing his leg. He didn’t talk in the meeting. Let Dave do his thing, “Hi I’m Dave and I’m an addict, I’ve been sober for three months…”

He thought about talking. He was going to die, it wasn’t going to like. Hurt.

He couldn’t do it though. He was a fucking coward. He just listened and felt worse because there was nothing wrong with him but there was something wrong with him. The euphoria of the plan was gone. He was going to die. He should just get it over with already, stop stalling, stop being such a fucking pussy. People had lives, hard lives, and he was making Zoe’s hard and his mom’s hard and his dad’s...

“Coffee?” Dave said once the meeting ended.

“Nobody ever brings shit to these meetings but Deb the organizer,” Connor said suddenly. They’d gone to this meeting a few times; they held one a few times a week there, and Deb was always there. He always saw Deb with the juice and cookies and whatever. “Do you think that’s… fair? That she’s always organizing the snacks and coffee and shit and she’s gotta sit in a room full of junkies? Like. Shouldn’t there be a sign up sheet or something?”

Dave shrugged. “Want to come back next week and ask? Maybe bring some oatmeal raisin?”

“Nobody likes oatmeal raisin,” Connor said. He actually did, but he got made fun of in the fourth grade because that’s what his mom had brought in for a class treat on his birthday and the next year he outright refused to bring something in.

“I do.”

Of course Dave would. It was probably the same reason he liked Connor; he liked things that people thought sucked. That probably did, like, objectively suck. Connor pushed a hand through his hair. “I got in a fight with my sister. My parents don’t know where I am right now. I’m probably grounded.’

Dave nodded. “I’m sorry. What was the fight about?”

“They’re…. Making her drive me to school. They don’t trust me with a car all day. She’s pissed.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m ruining her life, I dunno,” Connor said. Head down. “If… if something happened to her, like an accident or-or she got cancer or whatever, I would. Like. I’d give a shit. I would care. I’d be all freaked out for her.” He shook his head. Cleared his throat to try to stop the burning feeling that was creeping into it. “So why…? I’m such an asshole to her, I just.” He shrugged, his shoulders collapsing. “Nevermind.”

He hadn’t meant to say a word about it but his whole head kept echoing with him calling her a bitch, with the sound of a chair shattering on impact with the ground, with him calling her a cunt because she’d called him a fag and getting a hair straightener thrown at him….

“Dude, it’s hard. Siblings aren’t easy. Just keep trying.”

“Yeah.”

“It’ll get better.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

Connor couldn’t tell if Dave was a liar or just an optimist.

He wondered if they’d ever see eachother again. And hoped that nobody would tell Dave what he was about to do. He didn’t want Dave to know. It wasn’t fair. Dave would get upset, because he was that kind of guy, and it just wasn’t fair to him. He’d just gotten sober, he just started talking to his parents again, he had a nice girlfriend and a nice job and a nice life.

He shouldn’t have let Connor come anywhere near it.

He hoped that Dave didn’t find out.

“I’ll see you soon,” Dave said. “I want to know all about school. You can tell me about all the cute boys and I can give you awkward speeches about first loves.”

“Sure. Okay.”

Dave frowned at that. “I’m worried about you.”

“Don’t. That’s weird.”

“Come on man, can I help? You just seem… not good right now.”

Connor shrugged. “I just. I’m just worried about school and dealing with Zoe, I guess.”

“Alright.”

“I’ll see you later.” He knew he wouldn’t.

“Alright man. Take care.” He knew he couldn’t.

“You too.”

* * *

 

The plan went like this.

He was going to fake sick the first day of school and do it then when everyone else was gone. He wasn’t super thrilled about his parents having to find him after he died, but every other option involved a stranger finding him, which just felt unfair to the stranger. At least his parents had been assholes to him some of the time. He figured at least Fucking Larry ought to have to have that image in his head.

He couldn’t make up his mind about whether or not to leave a note, so he decided he wouldn’t.

He did stay up late the night before, trying to work out something to say to Zoe. He felt like… like he owed her. Like she deserved something. He stared at his phone in the dark, typing out “Sorry about” and then.

He just couldn’t do it. He’d been a shit head to her for her whole life, and even on his last fucking day on earth he couldn’t apologize to her. It all sounded so half assed and bullshit. Like it would be more unfair to say anything to her at all.

_Sorry about that time I threw a chair at you._

_Sorry about hitting you and calling you names._

_Sorry about stealing from you._

_Sorry about how much shit this is going to cause at first, but it’ll be better without me here, promise._

_Sorry sorry sorry sorry. Sorry for being a shitty brother. Sorry I made you hate me. Sorry I said I hated you, because I didn’t._

Sorry about sorry about sorry about everything.

Just everything.

He couldn’t do it. He deleted a thousand apologies and just put his phone away.

He decided not to leave a note.

And then it was all decided. It wouldn’t be too bad. It would be fine. He wasn’t scared or sad or anything. He was relieved. Finally. It was going to be over.

But just because it was almost over, didn’t mean it wasn’t going to be fucking difficult. He smoked half a joint in his bedroom. Just to take the edge off. He didn’t want to fucking feel any of this. And he felt literally everything.

He walked down to breakfast and announced he wasn’t fucking going to school.

“It’s your senior year, Connor, you are not missing the first day.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from "I Slept With Someone in Fall Out Boy and All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me."

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from Fall Out Boy's "Wilson (Expensive Mistakes)" from their new album M A N I A out today! #notspon ;) Chapter title is from "Bishop Knife Trick" also by Fall Out Boy. 
> 
> Jason is a reference to my friend Ari's fic, Between the Pages. 
> 
> Catch you on the update. :)


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